Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra: Beating heart of our city

Violinist Hilary Hahn opens the season in March. Photo / Mathais Bothor, DG

The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, which turns 30 next year, has some exciting treats for players and audiences alike. William Dart surveys the APO and NZSO lineups in the 2010 programmes, but finds one of them underwhelming.

It was the launch the city's music-lovers had been waiting for. The musicians of Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra had come down from the Town Hall stage and set up their stands in the stalls to serenade us with Schumann before we were given the details of the orchestra's season for next year.

The inevitable Super City braggadocio from Mayor John Banks passed quickly and it was encouraging to hear him salute the APO as being at the heart of the city's culture.

APO board chair Rosanne Meo spoke with measured commonsense, stating, amongst other things, that one of the orchestra's primary goals was "making sure the orchestral experience goes as extensively as it can" but it was CEO Barbara Glaser who, with justifiable pride, announced the treats in store in the APO's 30th birthday year.

For those who put store in the name power of guest artists, there's no quibbling with pianist Peter Jablonski or violinists Midori and James Ehnes, especially with Ehnes playing not one, but two concerts in October.

In a strong season for violinists, one can also look forward to the 2009 Michael Hill Competition winner, Josef Spacek, next June as well as 2005 winner Feng Ning returning in November.

Music director Eckehard Stier and Antony Ernst, the orchestra's manager of artistic planning, are quite a team - Stier will be taking on the Shostakovich Eighth Symphony, as well as some contemporary American repertoire by John Corigliano and Paul Schoenfield.

A few months back, Stier told me that next year's Opera in Concert would be more adventurous than this year's Madame Butterfly, and so it is. Richard Strauss' Elektra is on the bill - a New Zealand premiere. Heading the cast is distinguished English soprano Elizabeth Connell who has quipped she likes the role "because you can really let your hair down and any issues you had with your mother you can work out on stage ... and get paid for it". However, reviews suggest her performance will make us shudder for all the right reasons.

On the choral side, Teddy Tahu Rhodes' Christus will be the anchor for October's St Matthew Passion with principal guest conductor Roy Goodman working in the field he knows so well.

And for one concert, the star turn is an instrument when Thomas Trotter, acclaimed British organist, launches the newly-restored town hall organ with the Poulenc Concerto and Saint-Saens' Third Symphony in March.

The APO's commitment to the New Zealand composer has never faltered and Glaser was visibly thrilled to announce a second performance of Ross Harris' prize-winning Second Symphony in August - a work the orchestra will record for its first CD on the international market.

All this as well as two substantial new concertos - one for organ by John Wells, the other for marimba by John Psathas, who will also be the orchestra's resident composer for the next two years .

And for those who felt that this year's Splendour of Tchaikovsky was a little on the tame side, 2010's Splendour of Vienna runs from Beethoven's Choral Symphony (the work's first Auckland performance for six years, with a team of soloists lead by Aivale Cole) to Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and Schoenberg's immensely moving A Survivor From Warsaw, narrated by Stuart Devenie.

Alongside such riches, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's 2010 programme is distinctly underwhelming. Discounting some enterprising new commissions that will appear only in Wellington's Made in New Zealand programme, and a handful of festival offerings, also destined for the capital, the main concert series falls somewhat short.

A search for new local content uncovers a handful of shortish pieces: Anthony Ritchie's French Overture, Lyell Cresswell's Landscapes of the Soul and a five-minute Mahler tribute by Ross Harris.

Charismatic conductor Alexander Lazarev makes a welcome return in June but over two evenings only Prokofiev's Seventh Symphony makes the best use of his talents. The same gigs see pianist Freddy Kempf playing it safe with Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov.

Violinist Hilary Hahn opens the season in March, but only in one of the two weekend concerts and, of all the soloists, only percussionist Colin Currie brings some newish music in his satchel - a Concerto by American Jennifer Higdon and Scotsman James MacMillan's Veni, Veni, Emmanuel.

Most worrying of all is Dame Malvina Major touring mid-year - when one sees Casta Diva and Ah! Je ris de me voir being offered with the NZSO, one hopes that the soprano is in better form than she is on her recent album, My Life in Song.

The final curiosity has the NZSO providing a symphonic backdrop for Simon Bowman and Jacqui Scott, two West End singers reared on the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Claude-Michel Schoenberg, as they sample the Rodgers and Hammerstein Songbook.

But even in crossover, the APO has the upper hand, contributing a Mika and Gareth Farr collaboration, Po/Beautiful Darkness, to the 2010 Pasifika Festival, the perfect complement to the exciting work being done bridging urban and classical in its South Auckland Re-Mix project.

Truly an orchestra for the new Super City with, one hopes, funding to reflect this role.

ABOVE AND BEYOND

The APO does much more than stage concerts through the year, with "transformative" initiatives designed to bring classical music and young people together (this year, more than 25,000 kids from the Auckland region). Next year's programme includes:

Lion Foundation Orchestral Summer School Finale Concert: St Cuthbert's College, Epsom, January 17.

APO 4 Kids: A dance-along, sing-along, conduct-along, Bruce Mason Centre, March 27; Telstra Clear Pacific Events Centre, Manukau, April 17; Auckland Town Hall, May 1 (all events twice daily).

APO Open Day: One of the most popular APO events for all ages; Bruce Mason Centre, Takapuna, May 18; Auckland Town Hall, July 18; Telstra Clear Pacific Events Centre, October 10.

Lion Foundation Happy Hour - NZ Music Month: New work by APO composer-in-residence John Psathas and Auckland organist John Wellsplays his Organ Concerto, Auckland Town Hall, May 18.

South Auckland Showcase Concert - NZ Music Month: Hawkins Theatre, Papakura, May 25.