Three conductors this year

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33155, 20 February 1973, Page 10

Three conductors this year

Three very wellknown conductors will appear with the N.Z.B.C. Symphony Orchestra for the 1973 Christchurch subscription series.

Juan Matteucci, musical director of the Symphonia of Auckland, (will conduct the first concert in March; the conductor of the orchestra, Brian Priestman, will return for the May concert; and Antal Dorati will conduct in July and August. Priestman, resident conductor and musical director of the Denver Symphony in Colorado, will divide his time between the United States and New Zealand from this season. Antal Dorati last visited New Zealand with the Israel Philharmonic in 1966. Like Priestman. he divides his time between two orchestras, in his case the Stockholm Philharmonic and the National Symphony in Washington. By special arrangement with the Christchurch Arts Festival, the festival celebrity pianist, Michael Ponti, will appear as soloist in the N.Z.B.C. Symphony’s

first Christchurch subscription concert on Thursday, March 15. To mark the Rachmaninov centenary this year, the work he will play under Juan Matteucci will be the Rachmaninov Variations on a Theme of Paganini. He will

previously have performed a : piano concerto by this composer in the opening concert; of the festival on March 3,! with the Christchurch Civic | Orchestra. A favourite pianist, Lili Kraus, will return to appear in Priestman’s concert. Last here in 1970, she is still regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of the Viennese keyboard classics, ; and indeed of all the romantic composers. She will play the Schumann Piano Concerto. Use von Alpenheim is also no stranger to New Zealand music lovers. The Austrian wife of Antal Dorati, this: outstanding pianist has : visited the country twice before. as an orchestral soloist in 1959 and in 1969 with a Swiss chamber orchestra. She ' will join her husband for the last concern of the season, playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2. • Other musical highlights of the season will include ! Kodaly’s “Peacock” variations. the Concerto fori Orchestra bv Be “ok. and the. First Symphony. '