What: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra,
Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, Thursday, February 25 at 8pm
Antony Ernst has been a major force behind Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's coming of age during his five years as its manager of artistic planning.
Next week, the cool, personable Sydneysider moves back home to be CEO of the Sydney Youth Orchestra, frankly admitting that he'll be "putting into practice what I've learned from working with the APO".
Five years ago, Ernst wowed us when, in his first week on the job, he found a replacement for a last-minute cancellation by violinist Salvatore Accardo.
"My first day at work turned into my first night at work because the European agencies don't come online until going-home time," he remembers. "But then I suspect that there's an international conspiracy to inflict baptism by fire on every new artistic administrator."
Ernst came to us with a solid background in opera, including four years' experience in German houses on a Churchill Fellowship. He is a man with daunting people skills. "So much of this business is built on goodwill and trust," he explains, dismissing urban legends of temperamental artists and sharkish agents. "The vast majority are deeply decent, hard-working people because they have to be. That's the only way to succeed."
The APO too has clocked up immense goodwill outside this country. "It's a sacrifice for our soloists to come out here. In the time it takes to fly here and do a single concert, they could have done five recitals and two concertos in Europe, at much higher rates. They have to want to come.
"However, they often come here for the first time because they want to come to New Zealand but they come back because they want to play with the APO again."
Canadian violinist James Ehnes returns to Auckland in October, while Michael Hill winner Feng Ning, who is scheduled for November, has become an annual visitor and Ernst is only too happy to have them.
"Feng Ning is someone who combines technical facility that is second to none with what you could only call soul," he explains.
When it comes to the music itself, Ernst has not shirked from scheduling works "that some might not have thought of as APO repertoire". He singles out the 2007 Auckland Festival triptych of Farr, Takemitsu and Adams, 2008's Salome and last year's Mahler 6.
On the local front, Ross Harris' Second Symphony in 2006 "was one of my proudest moments", says Ernst. "It was great to be part of putting together a piece that is so powerful and moving, which is why we're doing it again this August. Getting past the first performance is the great hurdle and this piece really deserves it."
Ernst will tell you that he has dream programmes in his head, featuring scores that would struggle to attract the audience numbers the APO needs. He was thrilled when a short work by Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen, which "slipped under the door" in one 2008 concert, went down well with punters.
"Eckehard Stier, our music director, is keen on giving people good experiences with unknown repertoire. He wants audiences to come out of a concert really liking the piece that they didn't know."
One Stier programme last July is cited as an example, drawing people in with Rodrigo's popular Concierto de Aranjuez, but winning them over with an inspirational Vaughan Williams Pastoral Symphony. Yet, as well as extending both audience and players, the APO is always going to programme iconic works by composers like Beethoven and Brahms.
"The orchestra has a responsibility to play them and make sure that they are performed and appreciated," Ernst says. "In that way the artform itself is kept alive through renewal. Symphonic music evolved in Europe and it's absolutely, unequivocally part of European culture. But there's always this question in this part of the world as to whether it's just an import, a relic of colonialism."
Ernst clearly has no time for such attitudes. "Orchestral music is one of the great human endeavours. A pinnacle of achievement that deserves to be celebrated."
And, for the APO, celebrations begin on February 25 when Eckehard Stier conducts the orchestra in a programme of Mussorgsky, Prokofiev and Corigliano. Eight large paintings from Philip Trusttum's Pictures From an Exhibition series, on loan from the James Wallace Arts Trust, will hang inside the Town Hall on the night of the concert.
