Resonance Ensemble | A Tuba Comes to Town

After two previous attempts to bring a star Tuba player from Australia – Third Time Lucky!

Thomas Allely, principal tuba of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, is travelling from Brisbane specially to play with Christchurch’s excellent and innovative local orchestra Resonance Ensemble in the première of Tony Ryan’s newly revised Tuba Concerto. Ryan is also the conductor of this December’s concert which is Resonance Ensemble’s third shot at scheduling the Tuba Concerto after both previous attempts had to be cancelled because of covid-related trans-Tasman travel restrictions.

The concerto was originally written for Thomas while he was still a school student in Christchurch, and which he played with the NZ Secondary Schools Symphony Orchestra in Auckland. Tony Ryan describes the revision of his concerto as an almost complete re-write which recognises the exceptionally advanced virtuoso and musical abilities of this now widely-experienced soloist, and the talented players of the Resonance Ensemble orchestra.

Also on the programme is Otto Nicolai’s colourful and vivacious Overture to his Shakespearian opera The Merry Wives of Windsor, which makes regular appearances at the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s popular New Year concerts, and two even more well-known works by Scandinavian composers. Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg’s Holberg Suite showcases Resonance Ensemble’s superb string section, while Sibelius’s tone poem Finlandia is not only one of his finest works, but a gloriously patriotic and emotional declaration of his homeland’s national culture in the face of Russian oppression.

All of these works will come to life with Resonance Ensemble’s usual flair and dynamism in the stunning acoustic of Christchurch’s wonderful concert venue, The Piano, at 3.00pm on Sunday 4 December.