24 Oct 2018

Simon Over back for all Russian programme with Dunedin Symphony Orchestra

From Upbeat, 1:05 pm on 24 October 2018

This weekend Dunedin Symphony Orchestra welcomes back Simon Over, its London-based Principal Guest Conductor, to conduct an all-Russian programme.

Wellington Pianist Jian Liu will play Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto and the concert concludes with Tchaikovsky’s fourth symphony.

Simon Over has been conducting the DSO for the best part of a decade coming over from the UK for the sheer pleasure of working with the DSO, who he describes as a wonderful group of people from all walks of life.

He became involved in classical music at primary school when he was stimulated to dance when he heard “Morning” from the Peer Gynt suite. After that he used to pretend to conduct and soon took up the organ at his local church.

By the time he was fourteen he had his own choir made up of singers aged from eight to eighty, and was earning a hundred pounds on a Saturday playing for weddings.

For ten years Simon was Director of Music at St Margaret’s Church in the Palace of Westminster, where he played organ for major events, weddings, and other ceremonies.

St Margaret’s Church in the Palace of Westminster

St Margaret’s Church in the Palace of Westminster Photo: Graeme McLean

He also got to know quite a few politicians which lead to Simon establishing the Parliament choir made up of members of both the House of Lords and Commons and all the staff who work at Westminster.

Over says it’s especially rewarding because he sees politicians always up against it,  arriving at rehearsals with their shoulders all hunched up but by the time they’ve been singing for a while they’re all relaxed.

“They are really happy to focus on Bach, Handel or Mozart or something, and to be told what to do and not be worrying about putting a foot wrong.”  

After his concert on Saturday with the DSO, Simon Over flies back to London for a concert with the Parliament Choir  to commemorate the 1918 Armistice, where his choir will be joined by choirs from German and Italy all coming together to sing Mozart’s C  Minor Mass.

The Parliament Choir of Westminster

The Parliament Choir of Westminster Photo: Supplied

The concert is sold out many times over and as he puts it ironically, “With Brexit coming to a head this is a soft type of diplomacy via music, for once all singing from the same hymn sheet.”

What he loves about the choir is “you have both Houses, all parties, the staff of the palace, cleaners, the police, all the people who keep the place going, all meeting as equals. Music does this binding together like nothing else.”

When Creative NZ called for people to apply for funding for ideas to commemorate the centenary of World War One, the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra asked Anthony Ritchie to write a work for choir and orchestra and he wrote “Gallipoli to the Somme.”

Gallipoli to the Somme concert

Gallipoli to the Somme concert Photo: Dunedin Symphony Orchestra

The work has now been performed both in Dunedin with the City Choir and also in the UK by the Parliament Choir and Simon says each performance has moved people deeply.

“There were many tears to be wiped away by the end of the work which taps into the memoir of Otago soldier Alexander Aitken, who played his violin while fighting at the Somme.”

Anthony Ritchie

Anthony Ritchie Photo: Gareth Watkins / Lilburn Trust / Wallace Arts Trust

On Saturday Simon Over conducts the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra playing Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto and Tchaikovsky’s fourth symphony. The music takes the listener on an emotional roller-coaster journey: pain and despair at one extreme, soaring ecstasy at the other, traits typical of the Russian late-Romantic tradition.

Simon is looking forward to working with pianist Jian Lui who will play the Rachmaninov concerto. He says he believes in giving the soloist the opportunity to do what he feels is best, rather than being too prescriptive or autocratic.