The New Zealand Choral Federation (Otago) presents a concert featuring our local community choirs.
Come and enjoy as choirs celebrate reconnecting in song.
Choirs performing:
Steal Away for a moment of respite in this oh so crazy covid world. Come and join us for a concert of reflective American music, drawn from a range of composers, home-grown, immigrant and visitors, modern and traditional. You will hear music by Morten Lauridsen (O Magnum Mysterium), Eric Whitacre (Seal Lullaby), Ola Gjeilo (Ubi Caritas), Sergei Rachmaninov (Bogoroditse Devo), James Erb (Shenandoah) and Michael Tippett (Steal Away). Matthew Howes, who kept our singing enterprise together via youtube throughout NZ’s lockdowns, conducts us on this walk through some of America’s most well-known and beautiful choral music. Janet Gibbs will be bringing her lightning fingers to accompany us, and we have some surprise soloists joining us. We would love to see you there. As ever, there will be supper in the hall afterwards so we can gather with you – what a treat to be back in Level 1!
PLEASE NOTE NEW DATE AND TIME
In 'All Spaced Out', well-known chamber choir Viva Voce describes its response to the pandemic and its aftermath in song.
The programme includes music by Monteverdi, Purcell, Mozart, Elgar, Saint-Saëns and Anthony Ritchie, along with some lighter numbers, and features Eric Whitacre's magnificent 'Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine'.
You are invited to join VV for (free) refreshments straight afterward.
An English Affair – short pieces by English composers through the ages - an “all-sorts” programme, with pieces ranging in style, including some jazz, the Beatles, and coronation anthems, so there’s something for everyone.
A powerhouse of 90 voices, The Vocal Collective is a choir which sings pop and rock music. For these concerts, it has specialised further with a programme devoted to classic numbers which have helped define the sound of Aotearoa New Zealand popular music. From Blue Smoke (1949), through Nature (1969) to Kia Mau Ki Tō Ūkaipō (2019) you are sure to enjoy this showcase of fresh and engaging new arrangements.
Performing with Artistic Director, Richard Marrett, a live band and performances from singer-songwriter Amy Grace and The Vocal Network, the two shows will be a unique celebration of what it means to be a Kiwi. Expect to be reunited with The Feelers, the Finns, Fourmyula, Footrot Flats, Fat Freddy’s Drop, For Today and Forever Tuesday Morning. Expect to fall in love with the great Kiwi songbook all over again.
Wairarapa Singers present their Christmas concert featuring John Rutter's Magnificat and other traditional and contemporary Christmas songs.
Soloist: Emily Pratt
Concert goers around the world see George Frederic Handel’s triumphant oratorio MESSIAH as the pinnacle of choral works of the Baroque period. Composed in only 24 days in 1741, it is the work of a genius which holds an extraordinary place both among the composer’s works and in the history of music. No other work of its time has seen a continuous sequence of performances from 1742 to the present day.
Ars Nova Choir is delighted to bring back to Taranaki Handel’s celebrated work. Joining them will be Taranaki’s very own Bryony Williams (soprano) along with other prominent New Zealand opera singers Linden Loader (contralto), John Beaglehole (tenor) and Ars Nova Choir’s Patron, Roger Wilson (bass).
Come and hear Handel’s celebrated work accompanied in the Baroque style by Ars Antiqua Chamber Orchestra and directed by Christopher J. Luke.
Tickets available from TSB Showplace and www.ticketek.co.nz from 1 November 2020 (fees apply).
*****
The Queen's Closet and the Bach Choir of Wellington are excited to announce the start of a new artistic collaboration, beginning with their upcoming concert, "Seraphic Flames and Heav'nly Love," which will be presented on 22 November 2020 at 2pm at St Mary of the Angels in Boulcott Street. This sumptuous musical experience will feature Henry Purcell's Hail! Bright Cecilia and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's glorious Requiem in A major: two very different pieces that will showcase the variety and versatility of The Queen's Closet as a full baroque orchestra, and the talents of The Bach Choir of Wellington and our guest soloists. To support contact tracing, tickets are available ONLY from Eventfinda: https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2020/seraphic-flames-and-heavnly-love/wellington
Festive repertoire, centring on Britten's "A Ceremony of Carols" (additional repertoire tbc)
City Choir Dunedin presents a programme of choral music for the Christmas season, including Charpentier's 'Messe de Minuit', Britten's 'A Ceremony of Carols', and Bach's 'Magnificat'. The Choir will be joined on stage by the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra, with David Burchell conducting. The soloists are Lois Johnston and Caroline Burchell (sopranos), Claire Barton (alto), Andrew Grenon (tenor) and James Harrison (bass). The featured musicians are Helen Webby on harp and Johnny Mottershead on the concert organ.
Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s delightful 'Messe de Minuit pour Noël' (Midnight Mass for Christmas) dates from around 1690 and was probably composed for the great Jesuit church of St. Louis in Paris, where Charpentier held the important post of maître de musique. His idea of basing a whole mass on French Christmas carols was completely original. Altogether there are eleven noëls, most of which are joyful and dance-like in character, reflecting the carol’s secular origins.
Benjamin Britten’s hugely popular 'A Ceremony of Carols' was inspired by his discovery of "The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems". It is an unusual setting for treble voices and harp. The “carols” are largely the product of 15th and 16th century writers, most of whom are anonymous. They retain their unique flavour by Britten's extensive use of old English language.
The breath-taking 'Magnificat' was composed by J.S. Bach in 1723. The impact of this great choral work derives essentially from Bach’s remarkable ability to balance, yet at the same time to exploit to the full, the spiritual and dramatic elements of the concise text of the Magnificat. It is a sublime pearl from an era rich in choral glory.
Festive repertoire, centring on Britten's "A Ceremony of Carols" (additional repertoire tbc)
The Bay of Islands Singers
with
Soprano – Elizabeth Mandeno
Tenor – Michael Burch
Baritone – Jarvis Dams
Guest Orchestra led by Emily Allen
Organ – Michael Bell
Conductor – John Jackets
Programme includes:
| Fauré | Requiem |
| Haydn | Te Deum |
| Finzi | In Terra Pax – Christmas Scene |
| Holst | Christmas Day |
| Adam | O Holy Night |
| Handel | Zadok the priest |
The first half of the programme is a performance of the ever popular Fauré Requiem, noted for its underlying sense of hope, serenity and peace.
The second half opens with Haydn’s popular setting of the Te Deum followed by music with a Christmas theme: Gerard Finzi’s evocative In Terra Pax – Christmas Scene written in 1956 followed by a setting of Christmas Carols by Gustav Holst, the all-time favourite O Holy Night and ending with that up-lifting Coronation Anthem by Handel – Zadok the Priest
Soloists:
Elizabeth Mandeno has an MA in Advanced Vocal Technique from the Wales International Academy of Voice where she studied with Dennis O’Neill and Nuccia Focile. Jarvis Dams was the 2017 Winner of the Dame Malvina Major Foundation first prize at the prestigious New Zealand Arias Competition and winner of the Sydney Eisteddfod Opera Scholarship for 2018. Well-known Kerikeri tenor Michael Burch makes a welcome return to complete the trio
We welcome you to join us for our end of the year concert in which we will be performing Gounod's St Cecilia Mass under the direction of Lisbe Jooste. For this work e will be joined by soloists Vera Pluijlaar, Rishi Iyer and Jack Trubshaw. In the second half of the concert we will be joined by the Whangarei Youth Choir under the direction of Maria Satterfield and Charismata under the direction of Lisbe Jooste.
Tickets will be available for purchase at the door.
Auckland Choral’s performances of Messiah are absolutely the quintessential, don’t-miss holiday event for music lovers.
Handel composed Messiah in just 24 days and by the end, he knew he had composed an enduring masterpiece.
Soon after its first performance in 1742 it was established as a national treasure, before the Victorians made it the rock on which an entire choral tradition was built. Back then, vocal and orchestral forces of literally thousands would perform Messiah.
Dazzling vocal solos such as the heartfelt ‘I Know That My Redeemer Liveth’, the noble ‘The Trumpet Shall Sound’ and the exalted ‘Hallelujah Chorus’, along with instrumental fireworks, and glorious choral writing ensure this concert is an essential highlight of the choral year.
Celebrate the season as your Auckland Choral and Pipers Sinfonia along with stunning New Zealand soloists perform one of the most inspiring works of music ever written. Hallelujah!
Soloists:
Soprano – Jennifer Barrington Mezzo-soprano – Kristin Darragh Tenor – Jared Holt Bass – Wade Kernot Pipers Sinfonia
Conductor – Uwe Grodd
