Sunday 5 July at 2.30pm

Since moving to New Zealand from Finland in 2000, Vesa-Matti Leppänen has become an integral part of our musical world, both as NZSO Concertmaster and as a chamber musician, teacher, jurist and soloist. He has put together this exciting programme, partly in celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday in 2020, and also to showcase the skills of brilliant NZSO Principal Horn Samuel Jacobs who has recently returned to New Zealand after spending two and a half years as Principal Horn with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. Vesa and Sam will be joined by their NZSO colleagues Andrew Thomson (violin/viola), Nicholas Hancox (viola) and Andrew Joyce (cello). 

The concert features two of the most beautiful chamber works for horn and strings – Mozart’s Horn Quintet (which unusually features two violas) and Beethoven’s wonderful Sextet for Two Horns and String Quartet, a piece that is almost a mini concerto with its virtuosic writing for the horns. Joining the ensemble as second horn in the Sextet will be Shadley van Wyk, Principal Horn for Orchestra Wellington.  To open the programme will be a charming early Beethoven work, the String Trio in E flat.