Concerts

This evening’s programme offers a carefully graded emotional journey, moving from introspective delicacy through virtuosic intensity to full‑blooded theatrical sweep. Under Benjamin Northey, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra navigates these shifts with clarity and purpose, allowing each work to establish its own atmosphere without losing an overarching sense of cohesion.

Kenneth Young’s Douce Tristesse opens the concert, unfolding in soft pulses and drifting lines, creating an impressionistic wash of sound that would not feel out of place underscoring a turn‑of‑the‑century period drama. The orchestration is luminous without ever becoming showy, and as the piece eases into silence, I hear murmurs ripple through the audience: “pretty, so pretty.”

Samuel Barber’s Cello Concerto provides a striking contrast. I didn’t know the piece or soloist Li‑Wei Qin prior to this performance but I fell hard for both and became enthralled within a few phrases. Barber’s language is at once muscular and tender. There’s a sense of forces in flux, repelling and aligning in turns as the music pitches through complexity and full‑bodied romanticism, and in rare, sublime passages emulsifies intellect and sensuality into delicious combinations. Qin plays with a masterful ease as the concerto’s taut rhythms and brooding intensity melt into more overtly lyrical, sweeping gestures and back again.

This intensity primes the ear beautifully for Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet selections. Heard in this context, the suite’s rich harmonic language and dramatic contrasts feel especially meaty. Northey brings an additional degree of confidence and fluency to the Prokofiev and draws out the pleasure and flavours in the music. The programme includes well-loved excerpts alongside less familiar material, opening on the rich, self-assured menace of the iconic Montagues and Capulets. Throughout, the string section carries much of the work’s emotional and rhythmic weight with impressive stamina, catching the bite and precision required. Meanwhile, the brass and percussion relish Prokofiev’s more dramatic edges, delivering passages of formidable power.

By the end of the evening, we are warm, nourished, and satisfied. This is a concert that understands how to sustain indulgence and interest, leaving the audience, quite simply, well fed.

GRAMMY^®-winning Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel is touring his 2025 album Living in the Light. Such is the quality of his musicianship that five of the 11 tracks were recorded in one take, then finished and mixed in one day. 

The vibrancy of Black and White To Colour made it the perfect track to start. After Young Travelers and A Drowning Heart, also off this new album, Tommy said “No list here, I’m making it up as I go along”. Guitar Rag followed, then segued into Nine Pound Hammer with Tommy saying “Take it boys” then proceeding to make a percussive, washboard sound by scratching his pick on his guitar while playing a rolling bass, accompanied by his deep, rough-edged vocals. Amazing. 

He preceded Endless Road with an explanation of a period in his life, when deep in pain and grief, his music kept him going. The Sharon O’Neill classic Maxine followed, with Tommy’s vocals evoking the sadness of the lyrics. On The Beatles’ Michelle, the harpsichord-like harmonics were breathtakingly beautiful.

The vocal intro for Angelina, written for his daughter, was an added treat, as the original album track was instrumental only. Nat King Cole’s Mona Lisa, in the jazz idiom and a favourite of Tommy’s, was gorgeous. On Mombasa, that he wrote in Africa, he hit a light brush on his microphone while using his guitar to create complex percussive African rhythms. This jaw-dropping, almost indescribable technique left him breathless. Auckland singer Phil Madsen took up Tommy’s challenge to sing John Farnham’s divine Burn for You. Voice and guitar were superlative. Tommy then quipped “Here’s a celebration of a band I was once in”, launching into a blistering version of Dragon’s April Sun in Cuba, with the crowd joining in raucously.

Tommy welcomed back to the stage the superb support act, English finger style guitar player Mike Dawes, for Sting’s Fields of Gold and Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. For John Mayer’s Slow Dancing in a Burning Room, Tommy said “we’re going to play a song to take you out tonight which will just leave us all in a good vibe, man. Just enough room for some hokey pokey ice-cream, oh yeah... my drug of choice!” A good vibe indeed had by all.

The Origin of the Harp (Thomas Adès) was a true origin story. No harp in the music but conductor Gemma New did evoke the watery environment of the nymph and her transformation into a harp. New is a great storyteller, setting the scene for us and drawing the story in sound with confidence and clarity.

New suggested to us Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D major was sweetness and sentimentality, perhaps a reference to the strong influence his writing of film scores had on his classical works. Celebrated for bringing classical musical language to the movie soundstage, his Violin Concerto borrows back from some of his film soundtracks.

Soloist James Ehnes had every musical avenue covered whether sweet, sentimental, or serious. Ehnes’ technique was impressive. There are some seriously virtuosic parts, especially in the final movement, and he played with a thoughtful and considered interpretation of the many aspects of this work. His encore, Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonata for Solo Violin in D minor, is a dazzling and spectacular performance piece and Ehnes’ performance was as dazzling and spectacular as anyone could wish.

Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D major, Titan is an interesting musical miscellany. Mahler composed a symphonic poem, included previously written work, and subsequently revised and altered it over several years before it settled into the form we know today. Over four movements we traverse the natural world, a rustic community setting, an uneasy, distorted view of life and death, and a glorious finale.

New and her players had a lot to work with. Through clever interpretation and expert performance, they brought order to the somewhat jumbled narrative. New’s open arms and open-hearted direction could be heard in the orchestra’s sound, from the delicate opening harmonic in the violins, through a grim, minor key version of Frère Jacques with klezmer interlude, to a glorious finale, complete with standing fanfare of seven horns.

I don’t watch trailers. I’ll take a recommendation but refuse the synopsis. I made an exception for Tom Scott, who I last saw with Avantdale Bowling Club in 2018 and is now touring his first solo album ANITYA. I dived into his album and broke my rule. I watched the trailer.


As more high production comes to exist in our world of making, I was curious to see how Scott was going to translate the album for the stage. ANITYA is an expressive palette oscillating between hooky beats, real-life soundscapes, beds of taonga pūoro, and nylon string guitar. I’m reminded of Mk.gee’s 2024 album Two Star & The Dream Police and Anderson .Paak’s Malibu, but ANITYA is its own.



Warming us is Savagehine & Wear Pounamu with a dancer. Pounamu plays taonga pūoro over tunes with a youthful, honest reverence, with Savagehine rapping: a beautifully lit trio.


Scott’s band enters bang on 9pm, consisting of Guy Harrison on keys (also nailing a variety of guitar tones – but I was also hoping for a nylon string), bassist Cass Basil in the pocket with drummer Swap Gomez, an infectious Maxx Gunn on keys, and vocalists Vai’utukakau Mahina and Grace Ikenasio. I’d like to see less reading in today’s live contemporary scene, especially up front, as it can feel like a barrier.


Scott begins by insisting he’s “just an uncle from Avondale… and it’s not just about one dude tonight”, opening with gyal like you. The crowd, eager off the bat, really loosen throughout the night. I myself took three songs to land; that was when the sound mix found its equilibrium during i just came round to say goodbye again.


By the end, Scott has the crowd unified. Looking around I see half-hooded eyes and mouths uninhibited, making the space feel intimate because of the great delivery. A genuine encore is demanded, a split-second appearance by Louis Baker ending their set with high energy then leaving Scott, the last man standing, rapping a cappella to young men up front who rapped back with fervour, eyes locked. The sight is moving.


The rain didn’t dampen Friday’s attendance for Scott. The crowd was satisfied.

Split Enz, dressed in Noel Crombie-designed suits, walked onto the stage to instrumental The Choral Sea and the excitement amongst the 4000 capacity crowd was palpable. When they exploded into Shark Attack, with stunning graphics on the main backdrop screen, we knew we were in for something special. The side screens, showing close-ups of the musicians, flanked the main backdrop screen and fully engaged our senses and attention – an immersive experience.

Then there was the music: all the expected hits such as History Never Repeats, Poor Boy, Dirty Creature, Message to My Girl, and more, together with some surprises from their earliest albums. Before Time for a Change, Tim Finn mentioned an early tour with John Mayall which he called “an unlikely pairing”. It was on that tour, at Ziggy’s nightclub in Wellington, that Crombie first played the spoons.

Across the big screen, Eddie Rayner’s instrumental Double Happy featured a dazzling visual history of the band’s previous costumes. Although the core of this band have been together almost 50 years, with the current lineup featuring James Milne (bass) and Matt Eccles (drums) there was a vitality and freshness to their songs. Introducing Matinee Idyll (129) featuring Neil Finn on mandolin, Tim mentioned that “mandolin was a big part of our sound back in the day. We did a TV appearance on New Faces which was way before Idol, The X Factor, this that and the other”. 

By Six Months in a Leaky Boat, the crowd were dancing in their seats and spilling into the aisles and, with encouragement from Tim, sang the ending a cappella. I Got You followed, with the crowd singing at full volume. This was a party! A blistering I See Red finished the set, but there were encores to come – Spellbound followed by Tim singing the gorgeous I Hope I Never. Strait Old Line had Crombie starting on drums and ending up on spoons to end the concert on a high. This was entertainment and musicianship at its best.

It is a pleasure to be back in Wellington Cathedral for a concert that honours place and tradition while keeping creative energy and possibilities open. For this 40^th anniversary programme, The Tudor Consort perform in the round, reshaping themselves into new configurations for each work. These shifts create subtle changes of colour and perspective, keeping ears and eyes alert across a programme of 10 works.

The repertoire spans an enormous historical range, from 16^th century polyphony to contemporary choral writing, and the programming deftly weaves the choir’s own history through that arc. Several works are long‑standing fixtures in Tudor Consort’s repertoire, giving the evening a sense of accumulated knowledge and craft rather than mere retrospection. There is also a satisfying variation of density: works ranging from eight parts through to 40, and a thoughtful balance between music that leans into consonant radiance and music willing to sit in tension or ambiguity.

An especially pleasing programming choice is the inclusion of paired works by the same composers, allowing contrasts to emerge organically. The two settings of The Silver Swan, Orlando Gibbons’ poised melancholy alongside Jaakko Mäntyjärvi’s modern reimagining, sharpen the listener’s awareness of how Mäntyjärvi’s contemporary practice is informed by historic works.

This is the ideal mindset in which to approach Mäntyjärvi’s Tentatio, given its New Zealand premiere in a staging by Jacqueline Coats. The choir is positioned in four groups behind the audience, enveloping us in sound. The work conjures extraordinary atmosphere: moments of stark isolation, sudden antagonism, and passages of calm resistance as Christ faces temptation in the wilderness. A recurring solo female voice near the altar is serene, grounded, and untouched by hostility, while the male voices representing the Devil circle and menace from different directions. Personally, I felt Satan could have been pushed to be syrupier and more seductive, but the dramatic tension remains compelling throughout.

A final, deeply affecting moment comes when alumni join the present choir for O nata lux and Ave verum corpus. The sound blooms with warmth and shared history, joyful without sentimentality. A fitting affirmation of 40 years of collective music‑making.

This evening pairs two large-scale choral works with unusually compelling origin stories; Mozart’s Requiem, commissioned anonymously and left unfinished at his death, alongside Christopher Tin’s To Shiver the Sky, a work brought to life through the largest Kickstarter campaign ever mounted to support a composer.

Mozart’s iconic and distinctive Requiem opens the concert. The opening movement is particularly strong, Orpheus Choir balancing the painful and uncertain yet soothing quality of this sacred mass for the dead. As always, the Lacrimosa is a highlight, its tenderness and intensity making for deeply affecting listening. The solo quartet, Emma Pearson (soprano), Charlotte Secker (alto), Ridge Ponini (tenor), and Robert Tucker (bass), work exceptionally well together, prioritising blend and ensemble over individual display.

Tin’s To Shiver the Sky shifts the sound world entirely. The work traces humanity’s enduring obsession with flight, charting our journey from imagined wings and myth to scientific discovery and space travel through a selection of historical texts. Drawing heavily on the language of film and video game scores, the work is unapologetically expansive and frequently sentimental. Yet its emotional directness proves surprisingly powerful. The voices of great figures such as Leonardo da Vinci in Sogno di Volare, and Copernicus in Astronomy, become suddenly and disarmingly accessible through Tin’s settings of their personal writings. Ponini is especially moving as the golden toned voice of Daedalus, father of Icarus, delivering a beautiful and dreadfully tragic lament that somehow evokes the beauty of open sea and sky.

Tin’s writing makes inventive use of the choir, deploying it in radically different roles across the work. The early-music-inflected Become Death, setting Sanskrit verses associated with Oppenheimer, is exhilarating and fills us with dread, its austere sound world brought to life by superb solo singing from within the choir. It is not all evenly successful; the final movement, based on John F. Kennedy’s iconic “We Choose to go to the Moon” speech, and featuring unapologetic Americana and a children’s choir, feels less authentic and undercuts the impact of what precedes it.

Even so, this is an ambitious, emotionally charged programme, performed with commitment and care, linked by two very different stories about how communities bring music into being.

On Friday the 10^th of April, one of the world’s most iconic electronic dance musical festivals saw more than 30 artists perform across four stages along the Wellington Waterfront. From 3pm till midnight, the good vibes could be heard reverbing across a city lit up by rainbow LEDs, pyrotechnic and firework displays, and thousands of kaleidoscopically dressed festivalgoers. 23,000, to be exact!

The sun turned it up for us, with free sunnies available for a time and a spectacular sunset behind the Resistance Stage that cast a pink glow over German DJ MARTEN HØRGER’s feel-good house set. At 6pm we shifted to the Oasis Stage – right by the sparkling ocean with plenty of room to breathe and dance – to vibe to Aotearoa jungle and bass legend Paige Julia’s techno excellence.

The lighting at the ULTRA Main Stage for Oliver Heldens was fire (literally). Bathed in burnt tangerine orange and sunshine yellow, the Dutch DJ and producer dropped banger after banger. German DJ Zedd, French-Algerian EDM and dubstep force DJ Snake, and chart-topping American duo The Chainsmokers followed Oliver in turn, headlining a colossal ULTRA Main Stage lineup.

Los Angelite Ray Volpe – aka the Volpetron – was one of my highlights on the UMF Radio Stage at 8:20pm. Two Australian headliners tore up the same stage next. I’m stoked to have joined the thousands screaming “Tarantula!” back at drum and bass band Pendulum, and to have witnessed Alison Wonderland hecking up the crowd on a spiritual level after that.   

We saw out the night with anthemic producers Flowidus at Oasis. We had no idea it was the best spot in the house for a surprise fireworks display that matched our elation.

The buzz before, during, and after ULTRA was undeniable. I spoke with four friends afterwards to find out why we’re all still raving about it.  

Jesse “loved the fact that the first ULTRA New Zealand edition was held on the Wellington Waterfront”.

“It was the perfect venue to spread four stages across while maintaining exceptional sound quality at every stage,” he said. “It was great to be able to move away from stages to get food and drinks and the Audiology crew did a great job of making sure there were ample facilities for everyone along the way.”

This was the most recurring theme of our chats: how well organised and managed ULTRA was. The intuitive layout allowed people to move around with ease rather than elbow-barge their way to the loos or bars – a huge achievement for a sold-out festival of 23,000 revellers.

Ed agreed the environment was awesome thanks to the “good crowds – a lot of people were very respectful, and you could move to and from each stage with no drama”.

Andie furthered that “the crowd control between the stages was excellent”.

“And not a lot of issues with people shoving,” Ed nodded.

When it came to the stellar lineup, Andie was awestruck by the sheer scale of ULTRA and “really happy to actually get dubstep and other types of EDM in Wellington. We usually only get drum and bass, and while I love drum and bass, I love dubstep. My favourite set was definitely Nghtmre. Such a good time.”

Keri raved about Oliver Heldens and his throwback hits.

“I was having a spiritual moment. You know it!”

Ed’s highlight was “for sure Alison Wonderland – she was amazing”. 

Jesse’s were Mollie Collins, Oliver Heldens, Pendulum, Alison Wonderland, Flowidus, and “our very own Paige Julia”.

“The light shows were epic and the fireworks at the end were a beautiful way to sum up a magical day,” Jesse continued. “Can’t wait to come back again next year, it can only get bigger and better from here!”

Count me in!

Under the direction of André de Ridder, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra delivers a remarkably focused and cohesive performance that highlights the depth of talent within its own ranks.

At the centre of the programme is Bryce Dessner’s Trombone Concerto, performed under unusual circumstances. The orchestra learned only two weeks prior to the concert that the originally scheduled international soloist Jörgen van Rijen, who was planning to premiere a work written for him, was injured and unable to play. In response, the programme pivoted rapidly to Dessner’s concerto, with NZSO section principal trombone David Bremner stepping forward as soloist.

Bremner plays superbly, drawing an impressive range of colours from his instrument: percussive and incisive one moment, molten and lyrical the next, crystal-clear lines interspersed with gravelly and jazzy voiced phrases. Especially striking are passages in which the solo line fragments and reappears across the brass section. Here, Bremner’s close working relationship with his colleagues is evident. The ability of the other musicians to match his tone and colour so precisely creates uncanny effects, as though the soloist were accompanying himself. The sound seems to braid and divide without losing coherence. It is both technically impressive and musically absorbing.

Dessner’s concerto is an intelligent pairing with the Shostakovich that follows. It is an unabashedly contemporary and direct work, but like the Shostakovich it utilises dissonance and rhythmic tension in service of beauty and emotional insights.

The long opening movement of Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony unfolds with a grim and unsettling inevitability, its jagged motifs and mounting climaxes tightly controlled. De Ridder resists any temptation to over-dramatise, trusting the music’s cumulative power. Particularly impressive is the relentless drive of the ostinato in the third movement, which maintains its force with unbearably intense mechanical insistence.

The slow fourth movement is laden with grief, almost soothed, almost hopeful by turns. The NZSO captures this ambiguity beautifully, closing with a wistful and heartrending release.

Bic Runga’s collaboration with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra favours intimacy over spectacle, and manages to gently resize the grandeur of Michael Fowler Centre into something as familiar and communal as a local hall.

The programme begins with two instrumental works by Runga’s partner and long-time musical collaborator Kody Nielson. The band, including Nielson, join the orchestra on stage one by one during the opening music, a staging choice that reinforces the low-key, almost informal atmosphere. Nielson’s music is light-footed and textural, establishing a relaxed mood and soft focus.

Runga attempts a similarly understated entrance, but when she appears, wrapped in an off-white woollen dress, the audience greets her with delighted applause and cheers. Initially, singing pieces from her new album Red Sunset, she seems nervous, but as the concert progresses, she visibly relaxes. Her voice frees up, growing warmer and more open, until it feels as though no time has passed at all since her last collection of all-new material 15 years ago.

Placing Red Sunset alongside songs so deeply woven into our shared histories is no small task, but the newer works hold their own. Anchored by Runga’s signature melodic clarity, there is something almost affectionally sardonic in them that feels new and interesting.

The orchestral arrangements are restrained, but this is very much a virtue. The NZSO enhances the dynamic and beautifully structured qualities of Runga’s songwriting, enriching the colours and adding fuller sonority without overwhelming them. Her catalogue feels both familiar and remarkably fresh, especially since Runga’s voice is as clear and agile as ever.

Runga herself remains disarmingly unassuming throughout. At one point she offers, almost apologetically, “if it’s alright I’d like to play something else from the new album”. There is genuine affection between her, her fellow musicians, and her audience, and it makes this evening and this place feel special.

This season-opening concert brings together a programme built around big musical gestures and well-loved favourites. It largely succeeds in its aim: to warm the audience, reintroduce familiar musical touchstones, and set the tone for what’s to come.

The evening opens with Eve de Castro‑Robinson’s Aurora, a brief but arresting work that lives up to its reputation for momentum and bite. There is something Bauhaus-like about its aesthetic: angular, electrified, and deliberately anarchic. It has the sensibility of a tūī, that highly skilled and eclectic songbird. Bursts of birdsong collide with metallic textures and sudden shifts of energy. It is instantly engaging, though its restless intensity proves to be a challenging lead-in to what follows.

Beethoven’s Violin Concerto strains unmistakably towards Romantic expression, and its radical emotional expansiveness can feel slightly pedestrian when placed immediately after de Castro‑Robinson’s brash modernism. That said, soloist María Dueñas is more than equal to the task. Dueñas plays with astonishing technical control, but it is her phrasing that leaves the deepest impression. Long lines swell naturally, inner voices are drawn out with care. The result is a performance that reclaims the concerto’s lyric dignity, earning an audible upswelling of delighted appreciation from the audience at its close.

After the interval, Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, From the New World reminds us why it remains so deeply loved. This is music that seems to enact its own curiosity, forever exploring and reinventing itself. You can feel in it the germ of countless cinematic and musical theatre traditions yet to come. Conducted with warmth and clarity by Rodolfo Barráez in his Aotearoa debut, the symphony unfolds generously, balancing nostalgia with forward momentum.

As the nights get longer, this NZSO season opener does exactly what it needs to do: rolling out fan favourites, showcasing brilliance, and inviting audiences back into the shared ritual of listening. It is a confident, generous start.

Two-time GRAMMY^® Award-winning male vocal ensemble The King’s Singers have been wowing audiences around the world since 1968. They return to the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts after knockout performances in 2014 and 2018. The gold standard in a cappella singing, they have a back catalogue – as we learn during the performance – of 2776 songs ranging from medieval madrigals to modern masters of jazz, pop, and more. In this performance, one of the last for Christchurch-born baritone Chris Bruerton, we’re treated to the full breadth of their capabilities in a programme of two distinct halves.

Appropriately for the cathedral setting, the first half was entitled Angels and Demons and centred on these popular figures of Christian iconography, alongside the Virgin Mary and Christ. Using these four symbols plus Geoffrey Poole’s dramatic Wymondham Chants written in the 1970s for inspiration, this section collected together choral music from over 500 years to explore the light and darkness of the human experience.

The King’s Singers’ exceptional timing and purity and balance of tone shone through in all the diverse pieces, especially so in the third part of the Demons section, William Byrd’s Miserere mei Deus. Here, each voice perfectly delivered the complex and elegant six-part harmony into a sublime whole. Geoffrey Poole’s epilogue Blessed Jesu was performed partly in the cathedral’s ambulatory, giving it a stunningly ethereal quality.

Following a fun reworking of the overture to The Barber of Seville, the second half was devoted to the group’s favourite arrangements of gospel, jazz, and pop songs, including the most requested in their library, Billy Joel’s And So It Goes. They chose two songs particularly for Wellington. The first, called Whina Said, was composed by Robert Wiremu for the group and beautifully reimagined speeches by Dame Whina Cooper. After a long and hugely deserved standing ovation, they finished with a delectably arranged encore of Pōkarekare Ana.

Fully living up to their reputation for unrivalled technique, musicianship, and versatility, The King’s Singers delighted and excelled yet again.