Grammy Award-winning conductor Giancarlo Guerrero continues his career-long commitment to working with training orchestras, by conducting the NZSO National Youth Orchestra in 2023. He brings his “charismatic conducting and attention to detail” (Seattle Times) to a programme of twentieth-century classics. Aaron Copland’s Billy the Kid captures the Wild West, with its cowboy tunes, gun battles, and its evocation of the open prairie.

Little did Elgar know as he began improvising on the piano one evening that he would craft one of classical music’s most recognisable works. Elgar’s Enigma Variations grows from a simple melody, with its 14 variations each elaborating innovatively on the main theme.

NYO also performs a new work by 2023 NYO Composer-in-Residence, Nathaniel Otley. Recipient of scholarships from both the Fulbright Foundation and Sydney Conservatorium, in 2019 he won the Todd Corporation Young Composers Award.