KEY POINTS:
Marko Letonja is one weary man after a 24-hour flight from Europe. He comes to us for the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's concert tomorrow, after meeting the musicians for the first time on Monday.
"Jetlag is always a problem and never a problem," he says with a shrug. "It's part of the job."
Letonja is a force to reckon with on the European scene, after moving from his post as artistic director and chief conductor of the Slovenian Philharmonic, the biggest of Ljubljana's three professional orchestras, to his present position as chief conductor of the Basel Symphony Orchestra.
Yet the Slovenian picked up the baton by accident. "As a student I was more into rock music and played a lot of jazz, until a friend who was studying conducting asked me to come along with him as it was fun," he says.
"Once I experienced that special dialogue between orchestra and conductor I just wanted more of it."
Jazz these days is strictly for listening, "although a couple of years ago I took part in some improvising at a Martinu evening in a Basel jazz club. It was difficult but somehow it came off."
The Swiss city of Basel has important musical associations, ranging from the many composer manuscripts held by the Sacher Foundation to a thriving DJ scene.
"We still perform in the wonderful hall where they premiered Bartok's Divertimento," Letonja says with pride. "Basel is a fortress of concert music."
Among his greatest achievements within the fortress, are some productions of Wagner and Mussorgsky operas with director Claus Guth, as well as his series of recordings of the music of Felix Weingartner.
And he staged an evening of Swiss music which no one believed would be possible. "We played works by Kelterborn and Moser, as well as Thomas Kessler's said the shotgun to his head, a terrific piece written for the orchestra, with the American rapper Saul Williams and seven Swiss rap soloists."
Another first for the Basel musicians was a tour of China in 2005. "Every orchestra needs to be on the international market," Letonja says. "They need to go outside the halls and audience with which they feel safe. This was the first step towards putting the Basel Symphony Orchestra on the world map."
Letonja is looking forward to the coupling of Wagner, Rachmaninov and Strauss in the APO's The Age of Chivalry concert tomorrow.
"Rachmaninov's The Isle of the Dead is one of those interesting works that you never hear. The first version of the Bocklin painting that inspired the composer is in the Basel Art Museum just around the corner from where we play.
"It's interesting, too, that the Rachmaninov and Strauss' Don Quixote are from the same period. You can relate to the Bocklin painting with the first piece, or the Cervantes' story with the second, and the connections go even closer when you consider that both end with such powerful images of death."
But death and gloom are far from his mind in downtown Auckland overlooking an admittedly greyish Waitemata Harbour.
"I'm an absolute fan of this part of the world," Letonja says. "Sailing is my passion and I am now here on the very harbour where the America's Cup was held.
"It's a feeling about the colour of the sky, the smell of the sea. Something feels right."
PERFORMANCE
What: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra,
Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, tomorrow at 8pm
