We're tuning up for Settling the Score: Your Choice! Photo: Latitude Creative
For RNZ Concert's 2025 celebration of most loved classical music curated a day of audience requests, rather than ranking votes. We invited everyone to request a favourite piece of classical music for broadcast on the radio.
The results were first aired on Labour Day 2025, with a repeat broadcast from 6am on New Year's Day 2026. You can listen online here OR tune in to FM radio using this information.
Click on this link to see the music scheduled for Settling the Score 2025: Your Choice
As we looked though all of the wonderful music people suggested, we 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%.
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 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.
