Pietari Inkinen returns to the podium of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, where he served as Music Director from 2008 to 2015, for two contrasting programs celebrating two composers central to his artistic identity.

In Radiance (14 August in Wellington and 21 August in Auckland), Pietari Inkinen reunites with celebrated New Zealand heldentenor Simon O’Neill for an all-Wagner program featuring excerpts from Tannhäuser and Parsifal. Internationally acclaimed for his interpretations of Wagner, Pietari Inkinen once again explores the composer’s radiant orchestral writing and dramatic intensity alongside one of today’s foremost Wagnerian tenors.

The following week, he leads Myths & Legends (15 August in Wellington, 22 August in Auckland, and 23 August in Hamilton), a program devoted entirely to Finnish music. Joined by NZSO Concertmaster Vesa-Matti Leppänen, he conducts the New Zealand premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s Violin Concerto No. 2, alongside Sibelius’ Pohjola’s Daughter and the monumental Lemminkäinen Suite, two works inspired by the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala.