Time traveller

The NZSO's music director-designate is in hot demand.

- by RICHARD BETTS

It is not, one suspects, how the NZSO wanted the announcement of its new music director to go.

Within days of German conductor André de Ridder being named for the top job, British music writer Norman Lebrecht was quoted in the Sunday Telegraph predicting chaos. “New Zealand is the other side of the clock. Basically, you can’t communicate,” Lebrecht said, failing to understand modern technology. “The whole position is absurd.”

De Ridder, somehow managing to communicate with the Listener from Germany, appears unfazed at the prospect of travelling between New Zealand and the UK, where he has also recently accepted the position of music director at the English National Opera. Both roles begin in 2027.