2025 Whakatipu Music Festival

Welcoming two incredible conductors: Euan Safey and Reuben Brown

In the lead up to our 2025 Whakatipu Music Festival we will be introducing you to each of our selected young and emerging artists who will take the stage alongside five internationally renowned classical musicians this Easter.

About Reuben:

Hailing from the deep south of Aotearoa New Zealand, Reuben Brown is the 2025 NZ Assistant Conductor-in-Residence, where he will debut with the Auckland Philharmonia, Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, and Dunedin Symphony Orchestra, assisting resident and visiting conductors.

“Over the past few months, I’ve been honing my skills with the Auckland Philharmonia as the 2025 Assistant Conductor-in-Residence, and I’m eager to put them to good use with this exciting cohort of musicians.”

In 2023, Reuben made his conducting debut with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO), leading Christmas Brass at Te Papa Museum. He has assisted NZSO Principal Conductor Gemma New and, as a 2022-2024 NZSO Conducting Fellow, was mentored by James Judd, Hamish McKeich, and visiting conductors André de Ridder, Stéphane Denève, and Miguel Harth-Bedoya.

Reuben has conducted the NZSO National Youth Orchestra and recorded four works by Aotearoa composers for the NZSO/CANZ Composer Workshops. He has also directed several touring NZSO Tamariki Time & Open Doors outreach concerts.

A euphonium musician, Reuben performs with the Royal New Zealand Air Force Band and Aotearoa’s premiere band, Wellington Brass, where he is Associate Musical Director. He led Wellington Brass to champion the 2024 Wellington District Contest with an entirely NZ music programme. As the 2022/2023 Musical Director of the National Secondary Schools’ Development Brass Band, he continues to advocate for young brass talent.

An honours graduate of Te Kōkī – New Zealand School of Music, Reuben co-founded Wellington’s Gallery Orchestra and conducted a forthcoming album with artist Arjuna Oakes.

Reuben will perform at Opening Night, Next Gen 2, and Rejoice!

About Euan:

Euan is a New Zealand-born orchestral conductor, chorusmaster and collaborative pianist. In 2024 he moved to Adelaide to study conducting at the Elder Conservatorium of Music and has since worked with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, State Opera South Australia, the Adelaide Festival, and currently works as a conductor and pianist at the Conservatorium. He is also part of the prestigious 2025 Australian Conducting Academy.

“Music is all about collaboration. To be able to perform with terrific players and work with prominent guest artists will be so rewarding.”  

Euan initially completed a Bachelor of Music with first class Honours in Piano Performance at the University of Waikato under Katherine Austin before going on to spend two years as a New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Conducting Fellow under Hamish McKeich and James Judd.

Euan has also studied under notable New Zealand conductors Kenneth Young, Peter Walls, Michael Joel, and Peter Adams, and received tutelage from NZSO Principal conductor Gemma New and international guest conductors Miguel Harth-Bedoya, André de Ridder, Mark Wigglesworth and Alice Farnham.

Euan’s conducting engagements have included positions and performances with Opus Orchestra, NZSO National Youth Orchestra, Elder Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra and Wind Orchestra, Adelaide Summer Orchestra, St Matthews Chamber Orchestra, Bay of Plenty Symphonia, Trust Waikato Symphony Orchestra, Youth Orchestra Waikato and the University of Waikato Orchestra. He also conducted the University of Waikato’s productions of Puccini’s opera Gianni Schicchi in 2022/2023.

As a pianist, Euan is a versatile collaborator, performer, orchestral player and teacher, and has worked as Assistant Chorus Master and Repetiteur with State Opera South Australia and the Adelaide Festival.

Euan will perform at Next Gen 2 and Rejoice!

Introducing Rejoice!:

Reuben and Euan will both perform at Rejoice!

To view the rest of our programme and find tickets for our other concerts, visit the Whakatipu Music Festival programme page.

Euan Safey and Reuben Brown will be conducting the Rejoice! programme Easter Monday April 21 at 2pm at the Queenstown Memorial Centre!
You’ve seen our callout for choir members (and it’s not too late to sign up ahead of next week’s rehearsals) but what will happen at this final Festival concert? Choral works come to the fore with the Rejoice! choir comprised of dozens of local vocalists with established artists in a celebration of the grand choral tradition.

Music by local composer Leonie Holmes opens the programme with the Young Artists choir joined by clarinettist Marlon Sullivan and pianist Stephen de Pledge.

Taking a step back chronologically, our string musicians perform Grieg’s ever-popular and gently melodic neo-baroque Holberg suite with Euan Safey and Reuben Brown share conducting honours here, while another emerging conductor, Esther oh, takes the baton as Austin Haynes performs three Māori language songs, composed by Erima Maewa Kaihau (1879-1941). Best known as the composer of ‘Now is the Hour’, Kaihau was a poet, singer and a pioneer in combining European art song to Māori poetic and musical traditions. Austin will perform three of Kiahau’s songs published 1918, working from newly rediscovered orchestral arrangements, which have not been performed for decades. We rejoice that we can perform them together in our final concert.

The full force of community and experienced choral forces is on show as the concert (and Festival) draws to a close.  Revel in the irresistible beat and drama right from the start of Carl Orff’s hugely popular (and popularised by its use in many movies) O Fortuna.  Perhaps Orff learned from Handel, whose Hallelujah chorus from the Easter section of his Messiah similarly showcases the power of using using the full gamut of choral forces.

No choral concert is complete without Beethoven’s Ode to Joy which stands today, nearly two and a half centuries after it was composed, as a powerful protest anthem for some, but primarily as a celebration of music – especially choral music.

“I’m so excited to be performing music from our own home-grown composers and rounding out the concert with Beethoven’s rousing Ode to Joy and the Easter Sunday traditional Hallelujah Chorus.  Such a perfect programme!” says Euan.

–

Young Artists choir: Felicity, Austin, Ivan and Mark
Marlon Sullivan, clarinet
Stephen de Pledge, piano
Euan Safey, conductor
Austin Haynes, conductor and countertenor
Esther Oh, conductor
Members of the Queenstown community perform as a choir

–

Leonie Holmes (b. 1962): Nocturne from Silvers Whispers Suite

Grieg (1843 – 1907): Holberg Suite
i. Praeludium
ii. Sarabande
iii. Gavotte-Musette-Gavotte
iv: Air
v: Riguadon

Kaihau (1855 – 1920): Akoako o Te Rangi (Whisper of Heaven)
E moe te Ra (Shadows of Evening)

Carl Orff (1895 – 1982): O Fortuna from Carmina Burana

Handel (1685 – 1759): The Hallelujah Chorus from The Messiah

Mascagni (1863 – 1945): Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana

Beethoven (1770 – 1827): Ode to Joy, from Symphony No 9 in D minor, Op 125, movement 4

Buy tickets for REJOICE!