Virtuosic cellist Daniel Muller-Schott visits New Zealand for the first time to perform one of the world’s best loved cello concertos with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

The accomplished German, who will visit Dunedin, Christchurch, Napier, Hamilton, Auckland and Wellington, has been described in the New York Times as “a fearless player with technique to burn”. His performances of Dvorak’s glorious Cello Concerto have established his reputation as one of the most exciting talents of his generation.

“What brings great joy for me in this Concerto is when you can hear the orchestra in its full symphonic glory and force and the cello is still able to communicate and answer to what the orchestra is telling,” says Daniel Muller-Schott. “This is a great challenge but also a most satisfying and tremendous pleasure.”

Dvorak’s Cello Concerto was composed in New York, during a period when Dvorak’s sister-in-law Josefina Kaunitzova, a woman Dvorak had long admired from afar, became seriously ill. It is a powerful study of longing and loss.

Homesick, Dvorak returned to Bohemia in 1895 following three years in New York City as the director of the National Conservatory of Music. Soon after his return, Josefina Kaunitzova died. In 1896, he visited London for the last time to conduct the premiere of his Cello Concerto.

The raw emotions echoed in this great work are offset by the rhythmic vivaciousness of Russian composer Rachmaninov’s final work, Symphonic Dances, which was also composed in New York City.

Originally intended as a ballet, Symphonic Dances allowed Rachmaninov to indulge in nostalgia for the Russia he had known. It includes musical quotations from his other works, including the opening theme of his First Symphony, and showcases, for the only time in one of his works, the alto saxophone as a solo instrument.

New Zealand composer Larry Pruden opens the concert with his 1952 work, Soliloquy for Strings, which was composed when he was studying at the Guildhall School of Music in London.

The melody exposed in the opening bars is plaintive, expressing a sense of sadness, and the concentrated string writing continues this tone throughout the work. Three years after its completion, Pruden settled in Wellington where he continued to tutor, conduct, and compose until his death in 1982.

All three of the works programmed in Echoes of Home were written when the composer was far from home, so it is only fitting that our Finnish Music Director, Pietari Inkinen, conducts this Audi Concert series.

His return to New Zealand follows the premiere of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring Des Nibelungen at the elegant Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Italy. For the first time in its history, the Teatro Massimo is staging a new production of Wagner’s masterpiece entirely within the same season, in the celebratory bicentennial year of the birth of Wagner. Maestro Inkinen will be fresh from his Palermo premiere of The Rhine Gold and, most recently, The Valkyrie, which follows his successful premiere of the NZSO’s production of this magnificent work last July.

“I’m looking forward to being back in New Zealand to tour the country with this expressive programme,” says Maestro Inkinen.

“The various timbres and colours of the strings are accentuated in this programme and the full Orchestra opens out in Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances so it’s an opportunity to show off the NZSO’s luscious string sound. Cellist Daniel Muller-Schott has a very good reputation internationally so I am thrilled to be working with him for the first time and hear him play Dvorak’s moving cello lines, pitted against the full Orchestra.”

    “The magnetic young German cellist Daniel Muller-Schott administered a dose of adrenaline … a fearless player with technique to burn … But even more impressive were his gorgeous, plush tone and his meticulous attention to expression.“ The New York Times.

The NZSO looks forward to seeing you at Echoes of Home, the Audi Concerts.

For further information or interviews, please contact: Janina Hanify | Publicity & Communications Manager New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Te Tira P?oro o Aotearoa P +64 4 801 3833 M +64 275 745 294 E janinah@nzso.co.nz