An award-winning conductor rolls up her sleeves

Conductor Holly Mathieson

Photo credit: Martin Stewart

New Zealand conductor Holly Mathieson is in managed isolation quarantine again. She’s here for numerous conducting gigs with the NZSO this month and the APO in June. She may be a bit jet-lagged but is full of energy and humour on our Zoom chat, arms in action as she talks about the music in upcoming New Zealand programmes.

Mathieson is one of this country’s rising international stars who before the pandemic worked extensively in the UK, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, most of the BBC Orchestras, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. She has also worked in opera and ballet and recorded with several UK orchestras. In 2019 her debut CD featuring Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Isata Kanneh- Mason and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra took No.1 spot in the UK Classical charts immediately after its release.

She discovered during the various UK lockdowns of 2020 that there was work for pragmatic artists. “People needed workday roll-your-sleeves-up sort of conductors, who would say ‘OK, I’ll do that with a jet-pack on and a paper-bag over my head without being able to see or hear any musicians.’ People who wouldn’t throw a tantrum because it wasn’t ideal, because none of it was ideal. I loved the problem-solving aspect. Some really famous people didn’t have any work, while others of us, both soloists and conductors, were really busy.”  

Her first UK project out of lockdown was for Leeds-based Opera North. Called Song of our Heartland, it was a new community opera with a large cast, chorus and orchestra. “It was written,” says Mathieson, “through and by and for a small industrial town in County Durham about the effects of austerity and the Thatcher years. Such a moving piece and an amazing creative process.”

Recording Opera North’s Song of our Heartland

“…enabled people to express important things.”

The result was a film of the opera. “With social distancing restrictions, we recorded the orchestra, chorus and soloists separately,” says Mathieson, “with me listening to the previous session’s recording and watching a video of myself conducting and overdubbing the layers. Everyone had a good laugh about how crazy it was – but it was tremendous and enabled people to express important things.” 

An award-winning conductor, Mathieson has a delightfully unstuffy approach to her profession and to the music she performs. With her conductor husband Jon Hargreaves she is co-director of the 40-member Nevis Ensemble, billed as “Scotland’s Street Orchestra”. It takes music to communities wherever they are, shopping streets, libraries, museums, homeless shelters, prisons, the countryside and more. In spite of the pandemic, Nevis has remained busy reaching its diverse audiences with commissioning and recording projects.

The Nevis Ensemble

“Scotland’s street orchestra”

Turning 40 this month, Mathieson is one of a generation of musicians for whom the global pandemic has been a huge career interruption. "There are a number of us who feel as if we've done the obstacle course and the boot camp and here we are, finally – phew! – and then along the virus comes and knocks us all out."

Nonetheless she feels "incredibly lucky". At the end of 2019 Mathieson was appointed Music Director of Symphony Nova Scotia in Canada’s most populous Atlantic province, a role she has had to play remotely so far with an orchestra unable to perform live. Like many orchestras worldwide, Symphony Nova Scotia has been forced to adapt with virtual performances and chamber music. She’s hoping to get to Canada later this year or perhaps by the northern hemisphere spring. “We’re not sure if I can get a visa yet,” she says; “the eastern seaboard has just gone back into lockdown.”  

Mathieson is uncomplaining about what must be a major disappointment. “I’m just as happy doing the creative thinking and problem-solving as the arm-waving. I haven’t been desperate to put my concert blacks on. Equipping the musicians for the immediate future has been a strong urge; I feel a huge responsibility to help them learn how to be chamber players.”   

Meanwhile, because of New Zealand’s relative freedoms, Mathieson has had engagements last year and this with our major orchestras. She admits her 2020 visit felt very strange. "Having basically not left the house for nine months other than one walk a day or going to the supermarket, it was surreal. My colleagues in the UK said ‘oh, you're so lucky, it's going to be great, we're so jealous’ and I came to New Zealand, quarantined, went to the APO rehearsal – and didn't feel euphoria. I felt guilty, as if I were cheating on everyone else in the world."  

Conductor Holly Mathieson in rehearsal

Next month Mathieson will conduct the APO again in a programme called “Rediscovery”. She comments that in recent times “concert repertoire has become increasingly conservative and ossified. We’ve grown up listening to such a small and historic portion – pre-20th century it was the opposite. People were more curious, I think.” She describes the remarkable 18th century composer Joseph Bologne, whose 1st Symphony opens her Auckland programme, as “the tip of an iceberg of really interesting black composers from that period whose work disappeared behind a wall of white culture in the early 20th century.”

Though new to New Zealand audiences, Bologne’s work is now frequently performed in Europe, as is that of Frenchwoman Louise Farrenc, whose 3rd Symphony Mathieson will conduct in Auckland. “She was a professor at the Paris Conservatoire in the 19th century and her reputation extended across Europe. This Symphony is particularly good.”

“Rediscovery” also features Gershwin’s popular Piano Concerto in F with soloist Somi Kim. “I don’t often work with Kiwi soloists,” Mathieson says, “so it will be a treat to work with such an exciting musician.”  
Meanwhile, this week Mathieson begins an NZSO tour with a programme called “Fantastique”, three works linked by the theme of dreams. She lights up talking about Toru Takemitsu’s Dreamtime which opens the programme. “It’s very contemplative, a stroll through a beautiful Japanese garden with different views unfolding.” She says Takemitsu has a totally different world view from that of Berlioz, whose vivid Symphonie Fantastique gave the programme its name.

Dorothy Ker’s The Third Dream, which completes the NZSO programme, is different again. “It’s far more subtle than Berlioz,” says Mathieson, “who is explicit about his story.” She feels a sense of responsibility to the audience when introducing a new work. “Both the Takemitsu and the Ker are lovely works, but I also want to frame them for people so they have a window in and can enjoy the exploration.”

Mathieson’s home is in Scotland. “I’ve got an obsession with Scottish places – I grew up in Dunedin, live in Glasgow and have an orchestra in Nova Scotia.” Looking ahead, as well as getting to Canada to direct her orchestra there, Mathieson has work in Prague in December and her debut with the London Philharmonic in January. In summer 2022 she’s booked to conduct Carmen in the UK at Longborough Festival Opera, a privately-funded opera company with its own Bayreuth-inspired opera house in the Cotswolds.  

“Of course,” she says “with all these things there’s a question mark – is it really going to happen?” I get the impression that, whatever lies ahead, Mathieson will be rolling up her sleeves.  

NZSO “Fantastique” Holly Mathieson (conductor) Wellington, Auckland, Hamilton, Christchurch  May 14-18, live broadcast by RNZ Concert May 14  Book here

Stronger together: NZSO and Alien Weaponry Holly Mathieson (conductor) Hamilton and Christchurch 22 & 29 May Book here

NZSO “Pick-a-Path in Concert” Holly Mathieson (conductor) Hamilton and Christchurch 23 &30 May Book here

NZSO “Setting up Camp – Town and Country” Holly Mathieson (conductor) Auckland, Manukau and Kerikeri 9-11 June Book here

APO “Rediscovery” Holly Mathieson (conductor) Auckland June 17, live broadcast by RNZ Concert June 17 Book here

Find more information about the Nevis Ensemble and its projects here