Bret McKenzie made a classical concert rowdy, and he's thrilled
Classical concerts seldom encourage audience participation, but that’s exactly what the Flight of The Conchords star does in his collaboration with the NZSO.
Wellington music legend Bret McKenzie wants kids to enjoy classical music without having to sit still.
“You don't want kids going to the orchestra and feeling like they can't wriggle or cough or sneeze or make a noise,” McKenzie told RNZ’s Nine to Noon.
The Flight of the Conchorder is compere-narrator with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in a classical concert for children - A Creepy-Crawly Carnival.
The NZSO peforms The Spider's Feast with a specially-made film featuring New Zealand fauna.
Phoebe Tuxford/NZSO
The concert is a double bill: The Spider’s Feast by Albert Roussel and Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals.
The first show in Wellington was pleasingly rowdy, McKenzie said.
“The crowd they were a lot louder than I anticipated. Actually, they were quite raucous.”
Real time art-work from Wellington illustrator Stephen Templer added to the experience as he live sketched animals on a pad connected to an overhead projector during the show.
“I set up this thing where it's like, what is that animal? And I didn't realise they were going to start shouting, ‘this one! It's this one’," McKenzie said.
“And then there was one really hilarious kid - everyone went, ‘It's a chicken! It's a chicken’ and then about a minute later, it's gone quiet and one kid's like, ‘it's a chicken!’ It took an extra minute to figure out what animal it was.”
A couple of children, Eleanor and Miles, even got to wield a baton when conductor André de Ridder quickly taught them the craft in front of 2000 people.
“I had a couple of chopsticks in my pocket that I gave them. So, they had their own baton each, these two kids.
“They're probably seven and ten I reckon, these two kids. And they stand up in front of the orchestra and then Eleanor with her cape on waves her wand, her chopstick, and boom, the orchestra launches into a piece of music.
“And it's pretty rad because I think she's not going to forget that.”
McKenzie studied classical oboe when he was younger and was in the National Youth Orchestra before soaring to world-wide fame with band and subsequent TV show, Flight of the Conchords alongside Jemaine Clement.
He said he's enjoyed returning to a live audience after a period of relative isolation composing at home.
“My life is way more in a room with a computer, writing songs, sending emails, Zooms.
“It's like a lot of other people's jobs really, just without the writing songs for Miss Piggy. But I love it.”
Creepy-Crawly Carnival with the NZSO and Bret McKenzie is playing at Auckland Town Hall 17 August.
