We're tuning up for Settling the Score: Your Choice! Photo: Latitude Creative
For RNZ Concert's 2025 celebration of most loved classical music we decided to curate a day of audience requests, rather than ranking votes. We invited you to request your favourite piece of classical music for broadcast on the radio.
Requests have now closed, and we are arranging how they will play out on the radio from 6am, Labour Day Monday. You can listen online here OR tune in to FM radio using this information.
Have a sneak peek at the music scheduled for Settling the Score 2025: Your Choice here (from Thursday)
As we look though all of the wonderful music people have suggested, we've extracted some interesting information.
Of all the music suggestions we received this year, 38% of the composers requested are living, 10% are from New Zealand, and just 4% are female.
It was clear that several New Zealand composers have ardent and organised fans lifting them up. We love this for them.
| 1 | Beethoven, Ludwig van | Germany |
| 2 | Perkins, Andrew | New Zealand |
| 3 | Vaughan Williams, Ralph | England |
| 4 | Arntsen, Bjorn | New Zealand |
| 5 | Bach, Johann Sebastian | Germany |
| 6 | Schubert, Franz | Austria |
| 7 | Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus | Austria |
| 8 | Elgar, Edward | England |
| 8 | Handel, George Frideric | Germany |
| 8 | Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Illich | Russia |
| 9 | Kelly, Victoria | New Zealand |
| 9 | Jenkins, Karl | Wales |
| 10 | Shostakovich, Dmitri | Russia |
| 10 | Strauss, Richard | Germany |
Where does the music you love come from?
You requested composers from 28 different countries. The most popular country of origin is England, followed by a tie between France and USA, and third is New Zealand tied with Germany.
Settling the Score 2025 Your Choice of composers by country. Photo: RNZ
The full list is: England, France, USA, Germany, New Zealand, Italy, Russia, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, China, Finland, Norway, Poland, Spain, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Estonia, Greece, Jamaica, Mexico, Romania, Scotland, Switzerland, Tunisia, Wales. Countries below Czech Republic each contributed 1%.
During our Settling the Score broadcast, we have a range of experiences and items to gift to listeners. These have been generously donated by some of our classical music colleagues across New Zealand. Here are some things to listen out for:
- Christchurch Symphony Orchestra : 2 x double passes to CSO: Festive Christmas
- Auckland Philharmonia ; 1 x double pass to our Baroque & Beyond: Airs & Dances and 1 x double pass to The Premier Series: Mahler 3
- NZTrio : A double pass to the Hypnotique concert nearest you.
- SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music : CDs of John Psathas’ Ukiyo and No Man's Land, signed by the composer.
- WARNER CLASSICS : CDs of Serenata a Napoli by Pene Pati with Il Pomo D’Oro.
- A signed copy of Sarah’s Quigley’s novel The Conductor, gifted by the author.
- And we have RNZ Concert drink bottles and badges.
Settling the Score: Your Choice 2025 is a fun way for RNZ Concert to collate classical music requests from the public and create a day of great radio listening. We will broadcast as many requests as we can across the day, but due to the number of requests we receive, we cannot guarantee your request, comment or name will be included. How we distribute any gifts is entirely at RNZ Concert's discretion.
