Radio Fiona Rae
The Best of the Week
SATURDAY JULY 21
Music Alive (RNZ Concert, 6.30pm). The semi-finals of New Zealand’s most prestigious singing competition are live from the Auckland Town Hall tonight and tomorrow. The 2018 Lexus Song Quest has come down to 10 singers: the first five are tenor Filipe Manu, bass-baritone Joel Amosa and soprano Natasha Wilson, all from Auckland; soprano Eliza Boom from Whangārei; and tenor Manase Latu (Tonga and Auckland). Tomorrow night features sopranos Emily Mwila and Madison Nonoa, from Wellington; baritone Joe Haddow, from Porirua; baritone Jonathan Eyers, from the Waikato; and soprano Chelsea Dolman from Taupō. The five finalists who will compete in the final on July 28 will be announced at this concert.
SUNDAY JULY 22
The Sunday Feature (RNZ National, 4.06pm). In the second Reith Lecture, historian Margaret MacMillan talks about the many and varied reasons that men and women go to war. At York University, she begins with the Battle of Towton, a decisive conflict that nevertheless didn’t end the Wars of the Roses.
TUESDAY JULY 24
Music Alive (RNZ Concert, 7.30pm). Beer & Watkins sounds like the name of a new gastropub, but it is, in fact, a concert given by violinist Andrew Beer, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra’s concertmaster, and pianist Sarah Watkins last year. The recital includes a new work by Auckland composer Leonie Holmes, Dance of the Wintersmith, which is inspired by a book of the same name by fantasy writer Terry Pratchett. The other modern work is by Canadian composer Scott Good, And dreams rush forth to greet the distance, and the pair also perform works by Bach, Franck and Ysaÿe.
WEDNESDAY JULY 25
Music Alive (RNZ Concert, 7.30pm). One of the world’s most acclaimed conductors leads one of the world’s oldest orchestras in tonight’s Carnegie Hall Live: Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin perform Mozart’s masterwork Sinfonia Concertante in E flat and Bruckner’s popular Symphony No 7. The Staatskapelle’s first concertmaster, violinist Wolfram Brandl, and its principal violist, Yulia Deyneka, are the soloists.