Teapot Valley Choral Camp's final summer
4 Feb 2025
This year, the Teapot Valley Choral Camp drew to a close after 23 annual week-long summer camps in Brightwater, just out of Nelson. Dawn Brook, Executive Officer of the Teapot Summer School Trust, writes of that final, joyous week of friendship, laughter and music-making.
On Sunday January 12 2025, eighty-six choristers from all over the country arrived in the Teapot Valley out of Nelson. They came from as far north as the Bay of Islands, and as far south as Invercargill. The oldest was 91 (a bass in fine voice); the youngest was a 16-year-old soprano. The average age would have been well over 60. Twenty-seven were people who had not previously been to a Teapot Summer School and were likely a bit apprehensive, while sixty-nine had previously attended and were not about to miss this, the last opportunity for fine music, fine friends, fine food, and fun, all in the one place for a week or more. Numbers had dipped in the previous two years to fewer than 60, which was one of the factors leading to a decision to close down.
There have never been auditions for this choir. All that has been required is a love of singing and a determination to contribute to intensive music making. It has been a unique opportunity for many New Zealand choir members. When it was advertised as the last “Teapot” (as the regulars call it,) the rush to register was such that registrations were halted when enrolments reached eighty-six.
There were twenty-two previous “Teapots”, and there were those among us who had been to most of them. Both Carl Browning who founded the Trust, and Inga Lane, who held it all together for many years, were among the 2025 choristers. Carl memorably stated, “I wanted to give people the opportunity to experience unimaginable beauty.” We think he succeeded over and over.
Ebbe Munk, director of the Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir until his recent retirement, was our 2025 conductor. This was his eighth return to Teapot Valley as conductor. He proposed to the Teapot Summer School board that the major work for 2025 be Haydn’s masterpiece, The Creation, accompanied by the simple and spectacular beauty of Ešenvalds, Only in Sleep. The Teapot Summer School Board also commissioned a work from young Auckland composer, Takerei Komene, asking for an a capella work with te reo Māori text, on the theme of the world’s creation. The result was Aku Ringa, an innovative, thought-provoking and challenging piece which the choir loved singing.
In preparation for the concert, Ebbe and the choir had twenty 90-minute rehearsal sessions over 6 days, plus the dress rehearsal day. Each day began with vocal warm ups delivered by Judy Bellingham, the Trust’s chairperson for the last two years and frequent vocal coach at the event. She also delivered invaluable individual coaching sessions to all singers who wanted it. These arrangements were regular features of the Teapot schools.
In 2023, the Teapot choir had the great pleasure of making music with the New Zealand String Quartet. They and we enjoyed the collaboration, so we invited them back for The Creation. They were joined by local musicians - a flautist, a timpanist and two trumpeters - and organist Jeremy Woodside (who was also our wonderful rehearsal pianist).
The soloists in the concert were Sofia Gong (a King’s College Auckland student) who sang the Ešenvalds solo part, Rebecca Ryan, Moses Mackay and Theo Moolenaar. Both Rebecca and Moses have a history at Teapot. Rebecca has three times been our soprano soloist and she has also twice been our vocal coach. Moses was a chorister at Teapot as a teenager and credits Teapot as an experience that led him to pursue music as a career. Now based in Italy, he is successfully pursuing a career as a soloist.
All these ingredients made for an absolutely glorious performance of The Creation. As Judy Bellingham put it, “The choir was on fire!” It was exhilarating for everyone performing and for the capacity audience in the auditorium of the Nelson Centre for Musical Arts.
There is a big Teapot whānau out there. Incredible memories of hard work and achievement, camaraderie, friendships made and renewed annually, generous and hardworking conductors, tennis, board games and swims between rehearsals, and a lot of laughter at the annual cabaret (picture the great Sir David Willcocks lying on his back on the floor playing the piano cross-hands.) We are all so grateful for all of it.
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