KEY POINTS:
The Country's two main orchestras are first in line to reveal the music they hope will tempt us into concert halls next year.
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's six weekend visits are bookended by the new music director, Pietari Inkinen. He tackles titanic Mahler (Symphony 1), Lilburn (the eternal Aotearoa), a world premiere by his fellow Finn, Rautavaara, and, in October, for a solid Teutonic envoi, two Strauss symphonic poems in one evening.
Among the guests, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, free of his Elijah mantle, flexes his dramatic muscles in assorted arias. Apart from the noted Swedish trombonist Christian Lindberg in September, soloists tend to be youngish and hot off the competition circuit. Concerto choice is predicable, apart from Baiba Skrides coming up with Britten's Violin Concerto in May.
New Zealand works are the customary solo instrument turns, from Kenneth Young, Martin Lodge and Peter Scholes, who has come up with a provocative title for Bruce McKinnon's percussion showcase, Bonk.
The orchestra's Heartland tours next year seem threadbare without a New Zealand work although six South Island venues will be fortunate enough to hear cellist Maria Kliegel in Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations.
Once again, Wellington keeps some of the best to itself, including a Maxwell Davies Symphony in April, and its annual Made in New Zealand selection a month later, introduced by Whirimako Black. Hearing Summertime and Stormy Weather crooned in te reo hardly seems an appropriate introduction for the testing orchestral fare to follow.
The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra plays tried-and-true in its main series with popular soloists like John Chen (Rachmaninov 2 in April) and Feng Ning (Dvorak in August) but I am eager to catch cellist Richard Harwood (Schumann in March), Michael Hill winner Bella Kristova (Prokofiev 1 in June) while Australian saxophonist Amy Dickson joins the orchestra for a Philip Glass Concerto in October.
This main series has also secured that fine American violinist James Ehnes (Tchaikovsky in September) and is ensuring that popular conductors like Kirill Karabits, Arvo Volmer, Oleg Caetani and Christian Knapp take the podium once again.
Trust the APO to give us substantial local fare too. We can expect a full-scale commission from Gareth Farr in May - Ex Stasis, a symphonic song cycle for four voices. And let's not forget Ross Harris' Third Symphony in August. Smaller works by Christopher Blake and Jonathan Besser are also featured, Besser's Hudson River Pieces beautifully placed in an American-themed first Vero Aotea concert, come February.
For lovers of esoterica, the APO closes its main series with Szymanowski's vibrant Fourth Symphony in November.
The orchestra's extras are special too. Harwood, Kristova and Ning do recitals, and a mid-year Splendour of Beethoven, with two concerts under the baton of Baldur Bronnimann, promises to be a critical and audience success.
The orchestra's programming savvy shows in two one-off events. April's Salome in concert has Margaret Medlyn heading a top-notch local cast, including Martin Snell who has been coaxed back from Germany to lose his head as Jokanaan; October's Choral Masterpieces pits Haydn's Mass in Time of War against Stravinsky's invigorating Les Noces, with a quartet of pianos on stage, one of which is played by the fine young Russian pianist, Alexander Melnikov.
