Allegro Largo Scherzo Finale

Actually, that’s a bit harsh. After all, Nelson ostensibly has an orchestra (or did that finish up with that thieving conductor?), and yet I was still astonished early last month to discover that Winnipeg not only has an orchestra, but that orchestra is running a new music festival (which started on the 6th of this month), and that new music festival contains three works by ‘distinguished guest composer’ John Psathas. This means that the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra will be performing roughly the same amount of John Psathas’ music at this festival as the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra will be performing any New Zealand music during its regular season. Not only this, but a full festival pass is only $49 for students.

For roughly the same price, you can go to one of the scarce art music concerts at the New Zealand Festival of the Arts. You cannot, of course, go to Mahler 8 unless you were far more organised than me and actually bought a ticket before they sold out (note: I haven’t seen any notice of, say, a repeat of the concert, clearly the most sought after event at the Festival). As a result, I’ll probably only be going to the Keith Lewis and Michael Houston concert, which is disappointing. Instead of Mahler 8, I went to Joanna Newsom, which was great fun and, I suppose, demonstrated why everybody should at least start a composition degree.

Much as I found out about John Psathas’ pretty much unheard of international success by randomly browsing Promethean Editions, I found out about the St Andrew’s on the Terrace Season in the Herald (I only touch it on Saturdays! Don’t shoot!), when their really quite excellent classical critic (maybe he’s just a little too excited about the merits of the APO over the NZSO sometimes) announced it with a large photo of SMP performing. There’s an incredible range of music available, with a fair swathe of contemporary and/or New Zealand music. It isn’t quite a new music festival. It doesn’t have an orchestra. But it does what the NZFotA should have done.