Beethoven 9

Performing with New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Dame Gillian Karawe Whitehead Hoata

Beethoven Symphony No. 9

We are honoured to collaborate with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in a concert that pairs two powerful works shaped by ideas of connection and community. Beethoven’s monumental Symphony No. 9, revolutionary for its inclusion of a choir, remains one of the most emotionally charged and transformative works in all of music.

The programme also features Dame Gillian Karawe Whitehead’s Hoata, a haunting and atmospheric work named for the Māori lunar phase when the moon is barely visible. Written during a northern winter, it evokes isolation, stillness, and the quiet pull of human connection, offering a compelling contemporary counterpoint to Beethoven’s enduring call for unity.