YOUNG & BRILLIANT
Review of March 2026 Concert
The opening concert in SMCO’s 2026 Subscription series was perhaps the most exhilarating performance I have experienced at St Matthews – it was also part of the Auckland Festival – the first time that has happened. The near capacity audience included more than a few of Auckland’s Asian community - no doubt many were family and friends there to support the three young soloists and composer. All of them are known to not only Auckland audiences but internationally, such is their phenomenal ability and experience.
Junyang (David) Zhu has been learning the oboe since he was ten, making a meteoric rise to win several competitions and be selected as the Principal Oboe of the NZSO National Youth Orchestra in 2024. He spent two years in the USA in 2024 and 2025, having training from some of the USA’s prominent oboists. David’s future ambition is to pursue undergraduate studies in the United States. At the SMCO concert he performed Ludwig August Lebrun’s Oboe Concerto. Lebrun was, like David, a brilliant teenager, joining the famous Mannheim Orchestra in 1764 at the age of twelve. Lebrun was a contemporary of Mozart, and there were similarities. The orchestration was for two horns, 2 flutes, tympani and strings. David’s confidence was beyond his years. Not only was his musicianship without fault, his breath control, his technique and his rapport with orchestra and conductor were amazing. Continue your studies overseas David, as some others of the soloists plan, but we hope you will come back and share your beauty of sound and enthusiasm for music.
Soloist in the Wieniawski Violin Concerto No 2 in D Minor was another brilliant player, Hayden Chiu. Having performed at Carnegie Hall in New York at the age of eight and with the NZSO National Youth Orchestra since he was eleven, Hayden is already a very accomplished violinist. Wieniawski, who composed the concerto Hayden played, had a similarly brilliant background – a Pole being accepted into the Paris Conservatoire at the age of eight – when only French nationals over the age of twelve were normally accepted. Hayden’s virtuosic bow technique, sensitivity of interpretation and co-operative playing with the orchestra made this a very mature performance. The concerto had been dedicated to the great Spanish composer, Sarasate, and Hayden displayed plenty of Spanish syncopation, bravura and fire.
Henry Meng, only in his early twenties, was composer of the new work Salutation, commissioned by SMCO for this concert. Opening with brass and woodwind, Salutation was full of syncopated rhythms and shimmering woodwind. The music was accessible and full of challenges for the orchestra. Meng is a former student of Rae de Lisle and Stephen de Pledge at the University of Auckland, and was awarded the NZSO’s 2023 TODD Young Composer’s Award, before he began studies at the Eastman School of Music in New York. He is a young composer of real promise.
Shan Liu, who at the age of twelve performed with SMCO, returned now at the age of sixteen to perform Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No 3 in C major. The winner of numerous prestigious competitions, Shan will be a soloist with the NZSO later this year. He was winner in the 2025 National Concerto Competition, the youngest in the competition’s 57-year history. Always confident in the demanding virtuosic score, Shan was modest and ever the servant of the composer. Quirky humour and a contest of wills with the interesting orchestration (castanets and bass drum) were wonderful entertainment.
Three wonderful soloists of tender age. Wow! The audience looked spell-bound and in total awe of the array of talent. We should not ignore the conductor and orchestra. Michael Joel, the orchestra’s Musical Director, had a monumental job – each work was of different style, instruments and challenges. He met each with full authority and his confident style must have been of great support to the soloists and orchestra. The orchestra met all their challenges with similar talent. Congratulations, SMCO and soloists – you celebrated music-making and NZ’s music-makers with aplomb and
pzazz.
Review by Rogan Falla