Sinfonia goes global

The Southern Sinfonia is warming up for the start of its international series. Nigel Benson previews the sounds of the season.

The Southern Sinfonia's 2010 concert series leaps into life this weekend.

"Dvorak's New World", featuring Uzbekistan pianist Eugene Mursky, will be the first of three international concerts in the Dunedin Town Hall.

The series has been brought foward by two months to accommodate the on-again, off-again Dunedin Town Hall refurbishment.

Conductor Nicholas Braithwaite, who led the Southern Sinfonia for a decade, has returned from Adelaide for the first concert.

"I'm looking forward to it very much.

"I always enjoy coming back over here to work with this lot.

"They work very hard to get a result."

He's also looking forward to waving his baton again in the Dunedin Town Hall.

"It's one of the best acoustics in the world here.

"It's an outstandingly good acoustic," he says as we wander around an empty town hall on Monday.

"But I hope they refurbish it right.

"If they put carpet or soft chairs in it will kill the acoustic stone dead."

Braithwaite has fond memories, too, of Dvorak's Symphony No.9 (From The New World), which reflects the folk music from the Czech composer's homeland Bohemia.

"It's a piece I've done all my life," he says.

"When I was 11, I copied out the trombone piece.

"It wasn't the easiest thing to do, because it was an old 78 record and by the time I'd put the record on and raced down to get my trombone it was almost on the other side."

Braithwaite (70) has long ties with Dunedin.

His grandfather, Joseph Braithwaite, was the mayor of Dunedin in 1905-06.

His New Zealand-born conductor father, Warwick Braithwaite, lived in Dunedin before moving to England in 1916, when he was 19.

The family name lives on in Dunedin through the Braithwaite Scholarship, which is awarded every year to the head boy in the St Paul's Cathedral Choir.

Mursky will perform Prokofiev's glittering, but demanding, Piano Concerto No.3, widely regarded as a major feat of piano.

"I can't say that it's 'nice' music," Mursky says.

"It's an incredible concerto by Prokofiev.

"It's probably the most famous and demanding of his piano concertos.

"I just love it and hope very much the public will love it too.

"That's my goal."

The 35-year-old grew up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and is now regarded as one of the most exciting contemporary artists in the world.

"It was just like growing up anywhere else in the Soviet Union, except we have a wonderful old tradition of central Asian food, much like Persian food," he recalls.

Mursky began playing the piano when he was 6 years old at a youth music school.

Within two years, he was being taught by renowned piano pedagogue Tamar Popovich at an institute for talented children.

"When I was young, playing the piano was just something everybody in our school did.

"It wasn't a pressure.

"I practised just three or four hours a day and the rest of the time it was a regular school," he says.

"None of my family were musicians.

"My parents were both engineers.

"My father was a government employee and my mother worked for an engineering institute."

By the time he was 13, Mursky was already performing as a soloist with the Uzbekistan State Symphony Orchestra.