Grammy Award-winning violinist Augustin Hadelich makes his New Zealand Symphony Orchestra debut next month.
Hadelich features in the NZSO's Beethoven & Brahms tour coming to Napier on August 15.
Over the past decade the Italian-born 34-year-old has entered the upper echelon of the violin world and is now a must-see virtuoso.
"Hadelich is a singularly gifted, characterful musician who has a flair for bringing older music into the present tense," The New Yorker said in a recent profile. "When Hadelich first came on the scene, he was noted for his pinpoint brilliance and for his sweet, cultured, almost old-fashioned tone. It was as if a Golden Age violinist had jumped out of the grooves of a 78 rpm record."
In recent years Hadelich has also been praised for his interpretations of modern composers. When he performed a Shostakovich Violin Concerto in the United States earlier this year, one reviewer likened him to a rock star. "Hadelich wielded his axe, a 1723 Stradivarius, as a guitar god handles his Stratocaster, spinning a complex, emotional story on his violin."