NZSO Performs Online This Weekend With Three Superstar Violinists

Three of the world’s best violinists – Nicola Benedetti, Janine Jansen and Karen Goymo – will perform with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra over Queen’s Birthday weekend in a series of streamed concerts.

The NZSO Concerti festival tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday will stream recorded performances of the three violinists made in 2016 and 2017 with the NZSO led by acclaimed conductor Edo de Waart.

Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti, 32, who won a Grammy Award this year for Best Classical Instrumental Solo, will perform Brahms’ moving Double Concerto on 29 May. Benedetti performed the acclaimed work with German cellist Leonard Elschenbroich and the NZSO in 2016, which critics hailed as a “stunning performance”.

On 30 May Berlin-based Karen Gomyo, 38, plays Berg’s masterful Violin Concerto, filmed with the NZSO in 2017. Gomyo’s performance was praised as “wonderfully effective”.

The final Concerti concert on Sunday, 31 May, features Dutch virtuoso Janine Jansen, 42, performing Sibelius’ spellbinding Violin Concerto, filmed with the NZSO in 2017. Jansen’s performance was hailed as “riveting … and brilliant”.

Each Concerti performance can be viewed for free at 7.30pm on 29, 30 and 31 May at live.nzso.co.nz via smart TV, mobile phone, tablet or computer.

The three streamed concerts follow more than 20 new performances by NZSO players streamed since the COVID-19 lockdown. Last week NZSO players returned to rehearsing and performing at Wellington’s Michael Fowler Centre, which is allowed under Alert Level 2.

All rehearsals and performances follow Ministry of Health guidelines, including social distancing.

The first of the new performances at the Michael Fowler Centre was streamed on 24 May, with more to be announced.

Sei Solo 6 in Association with New Zealand Van Lines on 3 June will feature NZSO Concertmaster Vesa-Matti Leppänen playing the fifth movement from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Violin Partita No. 2.

Sei Solo is a six-part series where NZSO string players perform their favourite movements from one of Bach’s solo partitas, sonatas or suites, and share their thoughts on what the baroque composer’s music means to them. Each performance has been curated by NZSO Guest Assistant Concertmaster Jessica Oddie.

Other online performances since the COVID-19 lockdown have included the weekly series Play Our Part where NZSO players and international guests performed in their homes, an ongoing series of educational videos called Music Room.

Previous performances can be viewed on demand at https://live.nzso.co.nz/ and Music Room videos at nzso.co.nz/nzso-engage/music-room/.

Concerti

EDO DE WAART Conductor

NICOLA BENEDETTI Violin

LEONARD ELSCHENBROICH Cello

BRAHMS Concerto for Violin and Cello in A Minor Double Concerto

ONLINE PREMIERE | live.nzso.co.nz| Friday 29 May| 7.30pm

EDO DE WAART Conductor

KAREN GOMYO Violin

BERG Concerto for Violin and Orchestra

ONLINE PREMIERE | live.nzso.co.nz| Saturday 30 May| 7.30pm

EDO DE WAART Conductor

JANINE JANSEN Violin

SIBELIUS Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47

ONLINE PREMIERE | live.nzso.co.nz| Sunday 31 May| 7.30pm

Sei Solo 6 in Association with New Zealand Van Lines

VESA-MATTI LEPPNEN Violin

JS BACH Violin Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004 V. Chaconne

ONLINE PREMIERE

| live.nzso.co.nz | Wednesday 3 June| 7.30pm

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