Try GOLD - Free
Time traveller
New Zealand Listener
|August 9-15, 2025
The NZSO's music director-designate is in hot demand.
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.
This story is from the August 9-15, 2025 edition of New Zealand Listener.
Subscribe to Magzter GOLD to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 10,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
MORE STORIES FROM New Zealand Listener
New Zealand Listener
What's in a label?
Why finally getting a health diagnosis can bring relief – but a so uncertainty.
2 mins
October 4-10, 2025
New Zealand Listener
TV Films
The big movies on TV this week
2 mins
October 4-10, 2025
New Zealand Listener
History lessons
For his second novel, Airana Ngarewa draws from his own whakapapa to tell the story of a survivor of Tītokowaru's war.
4 mins
October 4-10, 2025
New Zealand Listener
Sam's summons
Sam Neill gathered a Kiwi-heavy cast for his third season of courtroom drama The Twelve, set in Western Australia.
3 mins
October 4-10, 2025
New Zealand Listener
Who's the moss?
\"Are you crazy?” This is what Bob is wondering. He has written to me to explain a few things, some of it about moss, though mostly about his opinion of me. It seems that, at least in Bob’s view, I am a pitiable idiot who is unworthy to exist in the same beautiful world as moss.
2 mins
October 4-10, 2025
New Zealand Listener
Clever and crammed
Trent Dalton's latest has truth, lies and delusion at its heart.
3 mins
October 4-10, 2025
New Zealand Listener
And your bird can sing
Once half of The Chicks, Suzanne Lynch marks 60 years in the music biz with a memoir that touches on the big names she's backed.
6 mins
October 4-10, 2025
New Zealand Listener
Going to extremes
In June, Melissa Hortman, leader of Minnesota's House Democratic caucus, was murdered, along with her husband, by anti- abortionist Vance Boelter, who had already shot state senator John Hoffman and his wife, and had made a kill list of Democrats and liberal figures.
2 mins
October 4-10, 2025
New Zealand Listener
High on her own supply?
Patricia Lockwood's new novel doubles down and tests the patience of her devotees.
5 mins
October 4-10, 2025
New Zealand Listener
Centre of the storm
Jacinda Ardern doco captures her time in power in vivid detail.
2 mins
October 4-10, 2025
Listen
Translate
Change font size