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One could imagine more enticing concert-going prospects than those offered in the 2009 brochures of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and Chamber Music New Zealand.
Where, oh where, are events to engender a sense of impatient anticipation, such as the Ross Harris Symphony which the APO premiered two months ago, the charismatic Macedonian pianist Simon Trpceski who lit up the NZSO's June visit or CMNZ's Hesperion XXI concert which still awaits us in November?
The NZSO's Auckland launch was certainly a low-key affair. First up was a slick video of music director Pietari Inkinen dispensing kia oras and platitudes from Te Papa; one could not help but think that this orchestra's heart, like its annual Made in New Zealand concert and its upcoming cycle of the complete Sibelius symphonies, belongs to Wellington.
A speech by Diana Fenwick, the chair of the NZSO board, spun ad agency superlatives alongside excruciating mispronunciations of artists' and composers' names.
The NZSO has the money and contacts that can bring Pinchas Zukerman and James Judd in a three-concert concerto spectacular next August; Finnish clarinetist Kari Kriikku will do contemporary fare in June and Norwegian soprano Solveig Kringelborn signs off the 2009 season with Strauss' Four Last Songs.
Two genuinely exciting pianists, Steven Osborne and Alexander Melnikov, are in the line-up, both alas with familiar concertos.
The short composer commissions we know well seem to have run out and have been replaced by a welcome revival of Jack Body's 1983 Melodies in March and three new works. John Psathas' Olympiad XXVIII and Chris Cree Brown's Icescape can be enjoyed in the acoustical comforts of the Auckland Town Hall; for Anthony Ritchie's French Overture in February, Aucklanders will need to slip out of town for an evening in Rotorua, Taupo or Tauranga.
The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's launch was livelier. A video montage of special moments from past concerts may have had variable picture quality but it was hip and witty. Rhetoric was kept to a minimum - early on, chairman Rosanne Meo wielded images of bricks and mortar while CEO Barbara Glaser stressed how much orchestral energy goes into education programmes. Worrying finances this year have put the Symphonic Pops and Twilight Chamber Music series on hold although artistic manager Antony Ernst hints at possible concerts later next year, with a Last Night of the Proms definitely scheduled for November.
A March programme of American music for AK09, coupling John Adams' The Wound Dresser and Barber's Knoxville Summer of 1915 with Ellington's Harlem, shows the flair you expect, but mostly the orchestra plays it safe. And so you can hear Michael Houstoun in the Beethoven Fourth, Mark Kaplan in the Brahms Violin Concerto and cellist Torleif Thedeen in the Haydn C major.
Some soloists bring surprises. English cellist Raphael Wallfisch airs the Dohnanyi Konzertstuck and Australian violist Brett Dean tackles Berlioz's Harold in Italy.
On the symphony side, the orchestra's newly announced Music Director, Eckehard Stier, will direct three of the best: Rachmaninov's Second to launch the series, Vaughan Williams' Third in July and the APO's first Mahler Sixth in August.
Finally, we can again enjoy the talents of principal guest conductor Roy Goodman, who brings three E flat symphonies, culminating in Beethoven's Eroica and, come October, the ebullient Englishman unleashes the glories of Haydn's The Creation.
One trusts three mid-winter Splendour of Tchaikovsky concerts will prove to be a coffer-filling series, although Puccini's Madama Butterfly as August's Opera in Concert seems a timid follow-up to this year's Salome.
With local music, the emphasis is on youth, showcasing new works by resident composers Karlo Margetic and Chris Adams. Chamber Music New Zealand's 2009 season opens in March with the glamorous Eroica Trio and closes seven months later with the New Zealand String Quartet and St Lawrence String Quartet combining their bows for the Mendelssohn Octet. Bonus alert: this programme features a new John Adams work, yet to be heard in the United States.
The Tokyo String Quartet and Pinchas Zukerman and friends promise unassailable quality while, talking homegrown, Diedre Irons and wind quintet bring another Anthony Ritchie commission with them.
For all the mainstream repertoire, CMNZ doesn't let you forget you are in New Zealand. In April the NZSQ play Haydn's Seven Last Words with poetry by Dinah Hawken and images from Nigel Brown, and Stephen De Pledge's September recital adroitly slips three Landscape Preludes by John Psathas, Ross Harris and Jenny McLeod in between Beethoven and Prokofiev Sonatas.
