birdsong + orange sunrise | Luka Venter: Fundraising Concert

birdsong + orange sunrise is a fundraising concert to support my journey as an emerging conductor/composer from Aotearoa

All proceeds and donations will help me take up a life-changing opportunity to hone my craft on the world-leading postgraduate conducting programme at the Royal Academy of Music in London — starting in September.

The costs of living in London are substantial, and my fees as an international student total c. $70,000 (NZD) per year across the programme.

Your generous support will make a decisive difference in my ability to take up this opportunity and develop into a leader in my field, and in time, to return to Aotearoa and make a lasting impact in our musical landscape.

Saturday 8 August: 6.30pm — St Peter’s on Willis

Join me, a chamber orchestra of players from the NZSO, STROMA, and Orchestra Wellington, and soprano Barbara Paterson for an elemental programme of music new and old.

Our programme opens with Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll — a tranquil, and luminous work signalling the birth of a new day.

We then move on to award-winning Aotearoa composer Ihlara McIndoe’s ‘curio’ for soprano and 14 instruments — music that unspools through a series of unique sound-worlds: the sea, the burning sun, and the scintillating air that vibrates around us.

We finish the concert with Haydn’s ‘Fire’ Symphony — a fresh and exhilarating work by this early master of the symphony.