Orpheus Choir Wellington is one of our orchestra’s most frequent partners. We showcase the choir’s altos and sopranos in Claude Debussy’s Nocturnes. The music reflects another kind of partnership: Debussy was inspired by the “Nocturne” paintings of American artist James McNeill Whistler. Whistler called his Nocturnes, “…an arrangement of line, form, and colour first,” a description that equally suits Debussy’s work. It’s delicate, magical music with the women’s voices like Sirens rising wordlessly from Debussy’s moonlit waves.

Then it’s the choir’s low voices’ turn to perform with the orchestra in a very different work, Ferruccio Busoni’s mammoth Piano Concerto. Gramophone Magazine calls it, “a thundering vehicle for virtuosity,” and so, we’ve enlisted one of our astounding collaborators, Jian Liu. The Concerto is a symphony-length work, Romantic in the style of Brahms and Liszt, with sweeping melodies. The second movement’s explosive gallop makes some truly insane demands on the pianist. While it’s a concert for those who love hearing a pianist conquer difficulties, its collaborative element elevates it beyond that. Pianist Benjamin Grosvenor says, “… you have to be acutely aware of coordination with the conductor and the orchestra. It is like chamber music on a gargantuan, truly maximalist scale. Sometimes you are going full throttle at the keyboard but are fully absorbed in the orchestral sound.”

The choir joins in the final movement, with Busoni wanting “to add a new register to the sonorities which precede it”. He had music he’d composed for a Danish/German, Goethe-influenced adaptation of Aladdin. He never finished the opera-drama but found that its final chorus, set in Aladdin’s mystical cave, suited the mood he wanted for his concerto

Working with our friends at the SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music, this concert also features the World Premiere of the 2026 SOUNZ Commission for Orchestra and Sistema Youth Orchestra | Te Tono Mahinga a SOUNZ mā te Rāngi Puoro me te Rāngi Puoro Taiohi a Sistema with the young Arohanui Strings+ musicians.

This programme is proudly supported by concert partner the Turnovsky Endowment Trust.

We welcome the young musicians from Arohanui Strings+ to perform.

This event is presented with support from our Commission Partner, the SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music Toroa Toi te Arapūoru.