The NZSM Orchestra performs their first concert for 2014, conducted by Kenneth Young and featuring a work by Associate Professor Jack Body and with Dr Jane Curry and Associate Professor Martin Riseley as soloists and David Groves as narrator.
Jack Body is one of New Zealand's most celebrated and versatile composers. He was, for many years, lecturer in composition at the School of Music and is renowned for his interest and championing of music from Asia. 2014 marks Jack's 70th birthday and the NZSM Orchestra is delighted to include his Meditations on Michelangelo for violin and string orchestra in this programme. The work is based on a previous setting for two female voices of the love sonnets of Michelangelo, which honours male beauty and laments the ravages of age. In this seven-movement rework of the musical material, intensifying its emotional quality, Michelangelo’s extraordinary poems will be read by David Groves and the violin solo will be performed by Martin Riseley, Head of Strings at NZSM.
The Renaissance theme will be carried through in the Fantasía para un gentilhombre (Fantasia for a Gentleman) by Joaquin Rodrigo. This four movement guitar concerto, played here by NZSM Lecturer in Guitar Jane Curry, is based on six short dances for solo guitar by the 17th-century Spanish composer Gaspar Sanz.
The concert will be opened however by three sections from Mendelssohn's music for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream': the Overture, Nocturne and the famous Wedding March. This also celebrates an anniversary: 2014 is the 450th anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare, the author of the play for which Mendelssohn composed this music.
Closing the concert will be a perennial favourite: Schubert's 8th Symphony, the 'Unfinished' – so-called because the youthful composer left just two movements composed where the Classical ideal was for four movements.
Event admission: Online: Adults $19, Seniors/Students $10 – At the Door: Adults $25, Seniors/Students $15 – NZSM Staff and Students free
Start time
March 25, 2014 7:30PM
Location
Sacred Heart Cathedral
24 Hill St
Thorndon
New Zealand
