“That is MacMillan’s great gift: to make a complex but white-hot passion immediately coherent and persuasive.” The Times,UK

Internationally renowned composer James MacMillan makes his Festival debut conducting a concert that brings together his own work with that of award-winning New Zealand composer Ross Harris.

A range of moods are explored in the purely orchestral first half, which provides the setting for MacMillan’s highly acclaimed work Quickening in the second half. This awe-inspiring performance will feature the powerful combined forces of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the Hilliard Ensemble, supported by the Festival Chorus, the Festival Youth Chorus and the TOWER New Zealand Youth Choir. A reverence for life is at the centre of Quickening, a work that is intimate one moment and epic the next.

MacMillan first became internationally recognised after appearing at the BBC Proms in 1990. His prolific output has since been performed around the world, and he is currently the composer/conductor of the BBC Philharmonic.

Works from these two great composers, who live oceans apart, come together in what will surely be an extraordinary concert.

If this event interests you, our Artistic Director also recommends Pre-show dialogue with Conductor/Composer James MacMillan,  Passio, Arkhangelos, New Zealand String Quartet Concert Two, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Zeibekiko.

 

11 Mar, 8:00pm