The Wellington-based conductor is conducting the first in the Southern Sinfonia's International series of concerts in the Regent Theatre on Saturday.
"When you are directing, it's quite different from playing, because you are not actually making a sound with your hands but you are the focal point for the orchestra to try and get the piece sounding how you want it. When it goes well, it's fantastic," he says.
McKeich (43) grew up in a musical family in Christchurch and learnt the bassoon. He liked it because it was a strange instrument and had an intriguing mellow sound. At 18, he was playing professionally in an orchestra, but he soon found he wanted more involvement with the orchestral repertoire and the only way to do that was by conducting.
He loved the orchestral sound and wanted to have control over the whole output of it, he says.
"I hope I'm not too much of a control freak, but there must be an element of that somewhere. You have to know what you want and go and get it musically."
He went to Europe to study conducting while still working as a bassoonist, and since then has forged an international career as a conductor of both orchestras and contemporary music groups such as Stroma in Wellington and 174 East in Auckland.
With those groups, "the pieces are always new, and haven't been performed before. There are always a lot of notes there. It's not such a big sound but can be quite full-on, but the music is usually quite tricky and there are new techniques to learn. It keeps you going," he says.
McKeich conducts Australian and New Zealand orchestras, including the NZSO, as well as in Holland, Armenia, Lebanon, and China. He is returning to Holland for a month after his stint with the Sinfonia, then returns to work with the NZSO.
Saturday's concert features Lilburn's Drysdale Overture, Brahms' Piano Concerto No 2 with Diedre Irons, and Sibelius' Symphony No 5.
There was a link between New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn (1915-2001) and Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) in that Lilburn was a great admirer of Sibelius and as he got older there was a similarity in their sound, according to McKeich.
The Lilburn sound world is similar to Sibelius'. Finland and New Zealand have a similar nature with open spaces, he says.
The Drysdale Overture is an early work, written by Lilburn as a challenge from his teacher, English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.
"I think he wasn't doing much work and Vaughan Williams told him he'd better write something so that's what he wrote. It's still very Lilburn in style," McKeich says.
Sibelius' fifth symphony is one of his most famous, composed for his 50th birthday. It's quite a short work, extremely intense and very moody, he says.
The final movement is said to have a "swan theme" suggested by the sight and sound of swans circling overhead in early spring sunshine, but McKeich says he hears something different.
"I don't hear it as a swan. There is a repetitive theme that goes through it, chords that go up and down. It's extremely visceral music and should get people in the bloodstream."
The Brahms concerto, on the other hand, is a huge, lush, romantic piece of music and quite pastoral, he says.
In preparing for a concert, McKeich says he learns the music by reading the score and hearing it in his head.
From that, he develops his own interpretation. When he conducts a work he's done before, he still learns the music, but it's quicker.
When he was a student, he used to listen to many different recordings but no longer does that.
"I'm not obviously influenced by famous recordings, though there would have been some I listened to a lot, many years ago. I'm sure that rubs off."
See it, hear it
The Southern Sinfonia, conducted by Hamish McKeich, opens its international concert series at the Regent Theatre on Saturday at 8pm with Lilburn's Drysdale Overture, Brahms' Piano Concerto No 2 with Diedre Irons, and Sibelius' Symphony No 5.
