Love our music? Become a Notes Fund Donor for our 2025 Season
Did you know that it will cost over $40,000 to purchase or hire the gorgeous pieces of music in our 2025 Season programme? We rely on the generous support of Notes Fund donors to purchase these scores. Find out more about our Notes Fund, and why this is such a valuable way to support our orchestra, in this interview with our Director of Development, Melanie Esplin.
In 1890, Claude Debussy stated: “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between”. But without notes, there is just silence.
And while John Cage might delight in a full concert hall audience observing a mute orchestra, every year the Auckland Philharmonia invests in a note or two. With more than 60 concerts a year, and up to 90 musicians to service with different score parts, many pages of notes are needed. As a result, the Auckland Philharmonia spends more than $35,000 each year on purchased or hired music to support the season of programming. And every year, generous donors step up and help the orchestra fulfil these purchases through support of the Auckland Philharmonia Notes Fund.
The Notes Fund enables Auckland Philharmonia supporters to leave their own metaphorical mark on a special piece of music. Perhaps it’s a favourite work, or one they feel particularly connected with – through the memory of a first concert, or the music they listened to with friends and family while growing up. This is a donor’s chance to share the joy of music that has meaning to them by giving towards a specific score or making a general donation.
The available scores are noted on the website and encompass music from the mainstage concert series, as well as our smaller community concerts and Learn & Participate educational programming. There is something for everyone, from $60 for a swaggering Piazzolla tango or swooning Dohnányi Serenade (both featured in the In Your Neighbourhood series), to a $4300 orchestral score of Wynton Marsalis’s Violin Concerto featured in the NZ Herald Premier Series: City Lights concert in November.
Donating to the Notes Fund represents a long-term investment in the Auckland Philharmonia. While copyright and availability mean that sometimes only hire arrangements are possible, whenever feasible the orchestra purchases the scores outright. This allows the organisation to build a library of high-quality music, benefitting Auckland Philharmonia musicians and the wider Auckland music community, and enable access to the music in perpetuity.
There are other advantages too, as Auckland Philharmonia Librarian Robert Johnson explains. “It means we can preserve all our own string bowings and other performance markings that are particular to our orchestra, so we don’t have to waste more time than necessary preparing the music for subsequent performances.”
Avid Notes Fund supporter David Lovell sees long term value in his investment. “Supporting the Auckland Philharmonia through the many donor programmes is a real privilege and the Notes Fund is no different. It’s a tangible way to see how my support helps the orchestra, not only now but in the future when the pieces are brought out again from the library.
“I really do encourage others to join in with the Notes Fund; it is an accessible way to offer your support. I also think it must be quite nice for the conductor to see my name written on the front of the score when they go to pick it up for the first rehearsal!” This year, that conductor will be Giordano Bellincampi, when he first opens the score to Wagner’s epic Tristan und Isolde.
When Notes Fund donors support a particular piece, they are acknowledged in the concert listing on the Auckland Phil website, in the printed concert programme, in the music collection notification that is sent to all musicians and on the score itself, which the conductor uses. And donors’ gifts ripple throughout the orchestra, literally providing music for each musician – and through them to everyone in the hall.