Emma Featherstone Photo: Supplied
It’s not often that a ticket to an orchestra concert comes with a free ski pass, but then it’s not often a symphony orchestra performs on a mountain side.
Synthony in the Snow debuts at Coronet Peak on 19 August.
Basically, Synthony is an orchestra playing electronic dance music (EDM). Synthony in the Snow is pretty much the same, only on ice – assuming the snow doesn’t melt first!
New Zealanders Erika Amoore and David Elmsly came up with the Synthony concept in 2017. It packed out Auckland Town Hall and has been packing out other venues ever since.
These days Synthony is run by Duco Events with gigs in both New Zealand and Australia. The orchestral arrangements by New Zealand School of Music graduate Ryan Youens.
Three to Seven host Bryan Crump spoke to Synthony in the Snow conductor Emma Featherstone about the challenges – and delights – of performing on a skifield.
She told Bryan that dry cold (low humidity) is especially problematic for string instruments.
The solution is to set up a warmer, moister space nearby to store them, although that doesn’t solve the problem of the players themselves getting too cold: things like brass players finding their lips sticking to their instruments.
So as well as pre-warmed instruments backstage, there’ll also be a team of pre-warmed back-up players.
On the plus side, with thousands of ravers cheering them on, Emma and her fellow orchestra players will have never felt more like rock stars.
