NZ Festival of the Arts 2010 Speculation
It’s now been some time since the ‘sneak preview’ for the 2010 Festival was announced, so it’s about time for speculation about what else is scheduled for next year. From a music perspective – and I really have no other perspective – the key announcement in the preview was the Mahler ‘Symphony of a Thousand’ – and I suspect that this will be pretty difficult to beat as a spectacle. Unfortunately, it also substantially reduces the chances of another great choral or orchestral concert. I went to three performances last year – The Trial of the Cannibal Dog, the NZSO’s Adams, Dean and (accidentally) Prokofiev concert, and Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen’s Book of Longing.
Things I want to see:
While Trial of the Cannibal Dog was really quite unexpectedly good, I’d love there to be a contemporary opera with some kind of established reputation, or at least by an established international composer (cf. 2006 with Tan Dun’s Tea: A Mirror of Soul). The hottest such opera right at the moment, of course, is John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, but it would be strange to see this programmed after the NZSO performed the Doctor Atomic Symphony last year. My personal preference would be one of Olga Neuwirth’s operas Bählamms Fest or Lost Highway, but I suspect that she probably wouldn’t be well-known enough to the New Zealand public to attract much of an audience.
Olga Neuwirth on the programme might also satisfy one of my other ambitions for the festival – a really fine chamber ensemble. Klangforum Wien works regularly with Neuwirth, as well as with a large group of other contemporary composers. Unfortunately, they’re busy in February and March next year performing new operas. Next time please? An alternative would be Bang on a Can (or some variant thereof), which would be a better option for more accessible contemporary music.
It would be nice to have one other NZSO concert, but that might be dependent on whether an audience could be found. The best thing to be said for the attendance at the Adams concert last year was that it was very easy to ‘upgrade’ seats. It would be hard to beat the music on offer at that concert – when I was having my harp lessons at the NZSO offices I actually did have a fit of glee when I saw the score for Shaker Loops lying around. Alan Hovhaness will have been dead ten years in 2010, and while he may have been one of those ridiculous-number-of-symphonies composers, at least these symphonies are well-constructed and accessible, if not particularly stimulating.
Some early music would also be a welcome addition, but unlikely due to the choirs being tied up. I’d like to hear some Josquin des Prez.