Highlighting the finest of emerging New Zealand talent, the 2025 Festival opens with a focus on performances by Austin Hayes (countertenor), Esther Oh (violin), and Felicity Tompkins (soprano). The programme ranges from popular arias by Vivaldi and Mozart, movements from Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No 9 and the great violinist and composer Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe, and the beautiful ‘Mediation’ from Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir d'unlieu cher. The concert concludes with a performance by a trio of acclaimed Festival artists Ioana Cristina Goicea (violin and winner of the 2027 Michael Hill International Violin Competition), Julian Smiles (cello), Bernadette Harvey (piano) of the Piano Trio No.1 Op 8 by Brahms, written when the composer himself was just 20 years old, foretelling his great talent to come.

Esther has already performed in the Manukau Symphony Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra, and with the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra as the soloist and she has played in masterclasses for Anne-Sophie Mutter, Ilya Gringolts, Sergey Malov, and New Zealander Ben Morrison, now in the Vienna Philharmonic. Soprano Felicity Tomkins was a semi-finalist in the prestigious Lexus Song Quest in 2024 and has been described as having “a voice like manuka honey”. Among other prizes in her career to date, Felicity was named the 2024 winner of the 100th Herald Sun Aria Competition in Australia and of the Sydney Eisteddfod Opera Scholarship. She is currently pursuing her career in Australia and the UK. Whakatipu Festival audiences are promised a musical treat from her appearances.