This immersive concert experience features breath-taking visuals from the multi-award winning BBC Earth television series on the big screen, with the original music score by Hans Zimmer, Jacob Shea and David Fleming, performed live by the APO with Voices New Zealand.

Watch surfing dolphins, powerful killer whales, colourful clownfish and ethereal jellyfish. From icy polar seas to vibrant coral reefs, from the luminous deep sea to vast undulating kelp forests — Blue Planet II Live in Concert is an unforgettable exploration of the  awe-inspiring wonders of the deep.

Celebrating our moana as precious taonga with uplifting music from around the globe, this beautiful concert accompanies the flight of the kuaka/godwit, from icy northern seas all the way down to a fragile sanctuary in Antarctica.

Starting in the North with a new work by eclectic Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi about the Arctic Ocean, we encounter whales, turtles and mysterious serpents on this musical journey following the great Māori navigator Ui-Te-Rangiora on his quest to save the oceans. Travelling through Latvia, Canada, the US and Indonesia, we arrive at a sanctuary, the majestic Antarctic captured in a new work by New Zealand’s Warren Maxwell, inspired by his own, personal experiences on the ice.

Conducted by Karen Grylls, with elegant direction and choreography by New Zealand Arts Laureate Sara Brodie, Taonga Moana is set to a stunning landscape of projected moving images.

This spectacular theatrical event is an ode to the power and poetry of oceans – essential, now more than ever, to survival on our planet.

This Auckland premiere is part of the Auckland Arts Festival. We’re proud to be part of the ROHA KI TE TAIAO / CARING FOR OUR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT – AIR, LAND, WATER strand of events at the festival.

 

With support from

Internationally renowned tenor Simon O’Neill and rising star soprano Eliza Boom join the Orchestra for an evening of classics from Bizet’s Carmen, Puccini’s La Bohème and Verdi’s Otello.

A celebration of New Zealand wouldn’t be complete without our own music. Gareth Farr’s From the Depths Sound the Great Sea Gongs and John Psathas’ ecstatic Tarantismo feature, while vocalist Maisey Rika and Taonga Pūoro specialist Horomona Horo perform music from the NZSO’s successful 2019 An Instrumental Voyage Pae Tawhiti, Pae Tata concert.

The full power of the Orchestra will be on show for Richard Strauss’ inspirational Suite from Der Rosenkavalier before all our guest soloists and singers from Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir join the Orchestra for a special finale, the beloved waiata Pōkarekare Ana.

This concert will also be streamed on the NZSO website and on social media. When booking you have the option to also make a koha contribution to the NZSO Foundation. The contributions will go towards community musical ensembles of all ages mentored by NZSO players.

 

 

The amps are unplugged, the drum kits pushed aside, the human voice takes centre stage. Bring your fav person into our bubble, ‘cause this set is about LOVE. Join six members of our national ensemble Voices NZ to hear the stories of some ancient and contemporary rockstar-composers and what they have to say about falling ‘head over heels’. For Monteverdi it was sweet, Whitacre feels like ‘moving as one’ – yep, this topic is infectious.

 

This concert has been postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

 

"The NZSO will endeavour to reschedule each of the concerts to later dates. However, ticket holders will have the option of a refund if they wish. For ticket holders who can’t exchange tickets but want to support the Orchestra, they can donate part or all of the value of their ticket to the NZSO."

 

Following the triumphant 2019 Beethoven Festival, NZSO’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth continues with a masterwork from the end of his life – the Missa Solemnis.

Imbued with theatrical spirit of opera and deep spirituality of Catholic mass, mixed choir, soloists and orchestra bring to life this rarely heard magnum opus.Maestro Donald Runnicles visits New Zealand for the first time to conduct this work. Currently Music Director of Deutsche Oper Berlin and Music Director of the Grand Teton Music Festival, Runnicles is also Principal Guest Conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Under his baton, a quartet of local and international soloists will be supported by Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir. Runnicles brings his considerable operatic expertise to Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, a work whose manuscript Beethoven inscribed with the phrase: “From the heart – may it return to the heart!”

"Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra (APO) regrets to advise that the upcoming Beethoven 250 Symphony Series concerts will not go ahead as planned, owing to the critical Covid-19 situation and the Government’s new limits on mass public gatherings.

We are however delighted to announce that the APO will still be performing each of the Beethoven concerts for you to enjoy via a livestream on the APO website and Facebook page as well as other third-party digital channels."

 

 

Beethoven Symphony No.8

Beethoven Symphony No.9

Beethoven’s whimsical, amiable Eighth Symphony is the work of a great artist who also happens to be a fellow human, laughing and joking like the rest of us.

Our shared symphonic journey ends with a mighty hymn to our universal humanity, the heaven-storming Ninth. The orchestra alone wasn’t enough for Beethoven’s ecstatic vision: voices were necessary. ‘All men shall become brothers,’ they sing. ‘I embrace you, O you millions – this kiss is for all the world!’ With this music, with its vast, elemental force, Beethoven speaks to us across the centuries and into infinity.

This event is part of a four concert series where we will be playing all nine of Beethoven's symphonies.

Featuring ensemble of singers from the three national choirs:
Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir
New Zealand Youth Choir
New Zealand Secondary Students' Choir

Britten   Simple Symphony
Handel   Music for the Royal Fireworks
Fauré      Requiem [1893 ed. Rutter]

‘Once upon a time there was a prep-school boy’, wrote Britten. ‘There was one curious thing: he wrote music, reams of it’. The former prep-school boy recycled some of his best juvenilia into this captivating piece.

Handel’s splendid Fireworks Music was composed for a grand celebration, marred only by stray pyrotechnics burning down some buildings. The APO’s pyrotechnics will be solely musical.

Fauré saw death as ‘an aspiration towards the happiness of the hereafter’; his bright, serene Requiem entirely omits Judgment Day. The great British choral conductor Stephen Layton returns to the APO with Fauré’s intimate, rarely heard original version.

Conductor Stephen Layton
Soprano Sara Macliver
Baritone Laurence Williams

Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir
Director Karen Grylls

Blue Planet II Live in Concert at Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre on Wednesday 22 July 2020 will need to be rescheduled. We hope to make an announcement of a new date for this concert experience in the coming weeks. For the time being, please hold on to your ticket(s) while we work with BBC Studios and Auckland Live to reschedule the event.

In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact ticketing@apo.co.nz.

 

Blue Planet II Live in Concert takes you beneath the surface of the world’s oceans and up close with the fascinating creatures of our underwater world.

This immersive concert experience features breath-taking visuals from the multi-award winning BBC Earth television series on the big screen, with the original music score by Hans Zimmer, Jacob Shea and David Fleming, performed live by the APO.

Watch surfing dolphins, powerful killer whales, colourful clownfish and ethereal jellyfish. From icy polar seas to vibrant coral reefs, from the luminous deep sea to vast undulating kelp forests — Blue Planet II Live in Concert is an unforgettable exploration of the awe-inspiring wonders of the deep.

Presented by BBC Studios, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and Auckland Live

Proudly sponsored by Meridian Energy

Blue Planet II is a BBC Studios Natural History Unit Production

 

Come on a festive journey with NZ Youth Choir and special guests, VOICES New Zealand!

In this cracker of a concert, these two national choirs have much to celebrate. Not only the festive season and warmer days, but it's also our 40th anniversary year!

NZ Youth Choir will be performing a selection from our Pacific repertoire, specially celebrating Pacific music. This is your last chance to see this choir before their first ever Pacific tour. They are journeying  to Samoa by plane, then on the MS Maasdam Cruise Ship to Tonga, Fiji, Niue, New Caledonia, and Australia.

VOICES NZ with be performing well known Christmas songs, including brand new arrangements from some of Aotearoa's most esteemed composers. Directed by Dr Karen Grylls, this choir fills a room with festive cheer.

"Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir...was magnificent, the men in striding good form, the sopranos fearless and unerring above the stave." - NZ Herald

This is a rare chance to see two of New Zealand's top choirs perform together. Plus we'll be debuting our first ever Virtual Choir!

With support from

PRESENTED BY CHAMBER MUSIC NEW ZEALAND

Voices New Zealand perform a stunning musical and visual reminder about the beauty and importance of our oceans, essential to survival on our planet. This inspiring concert celebrates our oceans as taonga with uplifting and moving music from around the globe.

A newly commissioned work by New Zealand’s Warren Maxwell (composer of the glorious soundtrack to the Waka Odyssey in the 2018 NZ Festival) will capture his personal experiences of the Southern Ocean and Antarctica when spending time on the ice. Traversing the northern ocean currents, Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi will create a new work about the Arctic Ocean.

A landscape of projected moving images will accompany the music. Created by multimedia artists Tim and Mic Gruchy whose visual designs have featured in works by the likes of Opera Australia, Sydney Theatre Company, New Zealand Festival and Australian Dance Theatre, this will be a spectacular audio visual celebration.

This project is supported by