Holly Mathieson Conductor
Tōru Takemitsu Dreamtime
Dorothy Ker The Third Dream
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique
Dunedin-born conductor Holly Mathieson returns to Aotearoa for her debut performance with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Mathieson worked as conducting assistant to Christoph von Dohnanyi, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Marin Alsop, before gaining the assistant conductor position of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Most recently she was appointed as Music Director of Symphony Nova Scotia.
Mathieson presents a programme of dreams. Japanese composer Tōru Takemitsu frequently drew influences from outside classical music. Dreamtime is inspired by the Australian Aborigine concept of a mythical time before humans when Ancestral Spirits walked the earth. Likewise, NZ composer Dorothy Ker explores primordial dreams in The Third Dream, the work "build[ing] organically from delicate stirrings to a physicality of volcanic intensity."
Hector Berlioz's fertile imagination bursts forth in his epic Symphonie Fantastique. Famously depicting the fevered dreams of an opium eating artist, the work takes you on a hallucinatory journey through passionate fantasies, a wild masked ball, and at last to the artist’s descent into the hell of a witches’ Sabbath.
Fantastique is part of the is part of the NZSO Festival season in Hamilton and Christchurch. It can be included as part of a flexi-subscription or purchased as part of the Festival package. Full Festival details and casual tickets will be available in early 2021.
Also at New Zealand Symphony Orchestra 2021
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