I went to the APO’s Pastoral concert last night at the Auckland Town Hall. I was sitting up in the balcony, which gave a great view of the whole orchestra. The guest conductor Roy Goodman works with 120 different orchestras around the world (see the impressive list at http://www.roygoodman.com/) – clearly he’s a master! I really enjoyed watching him conduct the orchestra - he is incredibly expressive, crouching down at times and leaping into the air during others – plus he looks like he is having the time of his life. The rise and fall of the music is beautiful to listen to, but what makes live music like this so enjoyable is that it is also a really visual experience with over 60 musicians on stage.

The guest violin soloist Lara St John was as impressive in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto as I expected from my pre-concert research. People who know more about the music than I do thought she was magnificent too – as did the whole audience, the applause went on for ages and she came back and treated us to an encore.

My favourite part of the evening was after the interval (note: half time is a sporting term, interval is more appropriate for the performing arts) with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 – Pastoral. Again there were moments of quiet tenderness and others of power with every instrument being played in unison. I truly think that any fan of music would find it hard to not appreciate music like this, performed by some of New Zealand’s most talented musicians. It was a really uplifting experience. I want to go again – I’m thinking that The Planets in a couple of weeks looks amazing. Another guest conductor who is also an acclaimed musician, accompanied by projected images of the planets from NASA! Amazing! http://www.the-edge.co.nz/Event-Pages/P/The-Planets.aspx.