Leys Orchestra

22/09/2026

Auckland Heritage Festival Concert

Come along for the ride as Leys Orchestra highlights everyday music in early Auckland.

Our musical adventure includes a motor car that suffers a puncture, an energetic foxtrot, musical cameos of London life, music for silent movies, a romantic intermezzo, a new take on a children's favourite, and more.

Free admission. Mt Albert War Memorial Hall 2:30pm Sunday 27th September.



https://www.leys-orchestra.org/

25/07/2026

We are very proud to present a special concert featuring Anita Austin in a rare performance of Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 3 on Natural Horn. This was the instrument of Mozart's time, demanding special techniques, as it doesn't have the valves of the modern French Horn.

Jill Ferrabee joins Anita in Introduction and Polonaise for Two Horns by German Romantic composer Franz Strauss.

The programme also includes Folk Songs of the Four Seasons by Ralph Vaughan Williams, a little Mozart funeral music, and Bizet's bright and breezy Dr Miracle Overture.

Free admission. Freemans Bay Community Hall 3pm Sunday 2nd August.

Leys Orchestra, community orchestra based at Leys Institute Ponsonby, serving the community of Ponsonby and wider Auckland for over a century.

21/05/2026

Come to our Family Concert on Sunday 24th May as we celebrate NZ Music Month.
The programme opens with the exuberant 'Dr Miracle Overture' by Bizet. Trombone soloist Luca Boyack features with a Concertino with Orchestra, and five soloists play the 'Grillen' Symphony by Telemann, which evokes the summer sounds of crickets!
'Children's Day' by Charles Ives conjures nostalgic scenes from the outdoor revival meetings of his childhood, and his bright 'The Circus Band' portrays a circus marching into town.
Music by Gershwin and Lysenko's 'Prayer for Ukraine' round out the programme.
Free admission.
Warkworth Town Hall 3pm.

https://www.facebook.com/LeysOrchestra

We are a community orchestra based at Leys Institute Ponsonby, serving Auckland since 1912.

28/11/2025

Family Concert. Come along to our final concert for 2025, featuring a controversial overture, folk dances from Romania, an anthem for Ukraine, some Renaissance ingenuity, some old folks at home & abroad, and a snappy march. Mt Albert War Memorial Hall, Sunday 3oth November 2:30pm. Free admission.
https://www.leys-orchestra.org/mt-albert-november-2025

https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2025/leys-orchestra-family-concert2/auckland/mt-albert2

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17/09/2025

From DIY to Radio. Come along to our Auckland Heritage Festival concert 2:30pm Sunday 21st September, Freemans Bay Community Hall.

In the pioneering households of early Auckland, warmed by coal fires and lit by kerosene lamps, families had to make much of their own entertainment. Our concert highlights imaginative musical and theatrical entertainment that families turned to in place of diversions such as movies, the internet, radio and television that we take for granted today.

The programme features A.A. Milne's 'The King's Breakfast' – a theatrical number with a narrator who tells and sings the tale of a grumpy king who's upset with his morning meal – along with evocative music of faraway lands, fantastical pieces conjuring enchanted places, and cheeky song-and-dance numbers.

Free admission.

Leys Orchestra, community orchestra based at Leys Institute Ponsonby, serving the community of Ponsonby and wider Auckland for over a century.

29/07/2025

Come along to our Family Concert Sunday 3rd August 2:30pm, Mt Albert War Memorial Hall. Featuring 'Andante and Rondo for Two Flutes' by Franz Doppler with soloists Emily Rendall and Briar English, the programme also includes music by Schubert, Dvorak, Kabalevsky, and a March by Archie Don resurrected from the original manuscript parts discovered in our heritage collection.
Free admission.

Leys Orchestra is proud to welcome back flute soloist Emily Rendall, who is a recent recipient of the Daphne Gretta Mary Stevens Community Music Scholarship. Emily is joined in this concert by Briar English with Andante and Rondo for Two Flutes and Strings by the flute virtuoso and early romantic Hu...

25/05/2025

Looking for String Players

Leys Orchestra is seeking dedicated string players. If you want to perform a diverse range of repertoire, enrich our community and experience the joy of ensemble playing, then we welcome you to join our friendly community orchestra.

Weekly rehearsals take place in Pt Chevalier on Thursday evenings.

To find out more, please go to our Contact page at:

03/04/2025

07/03/2025

17/01/2025

An archive of Arnold Schoenberg’s scores, letters, and photographs has been destroyed in the wildfires sweeping across California, in what the composer’s son has called ‘a profound cultural loss’.