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29 reviews
Saturday, 22 nd May, 2021 Encountering a work in concert every now and then that has somehow “slipped through the net” of my musical experience sometimes results in a bit of a “juggle” of contrasting feelings, and especially when one is a…
Saturday, 22 nd February 2020 Though the two events weren’t directly related, this heart-warming, youth-driven classical music event in Porirua involving Jonathan Lemalu and the Virtuoso Strings flew in the most appropriate and timely way…
Sunday, 24 th November, 2019 “Cello for Africa” was, in the words of co-organisers Heleen du Plessis and Donald Maurice, an event designed “to bring people from different cultures together using music, and specifically, ‘cellos, to help…
Saturday 15 th September, 2018 This second concert that I’ve attended which featured the voices of Inspirare, a choir founded by their director, Mark L.Stamper, couldn’t have been more different from the first one (an inspirational…
Choirs: FilCoro (Wellington Filipino Choir); Wellington Young Voices (children’s choir); Wellington Youth Choir; New Zealand Youth Choir
Accompanied by Brent Stewart (piano) and percussionists, with Elizabeth Andrew (soprano) and other soloists from the choir
Sunday 3 December 2017, at 4pm About 30 young singers between the ages of 8 and 14, 10 of them boys, performed a delightful programme to a substantial audience. The programme included four Christmas carols for the audience to sing with the…
Sunday, 10 September 2017, 4pm The cover of the programme appeared to be the poster advertising the choir, but I did not see it anywhere earlier as a poster, and a friend in the audience to whom I spoke after the concert had not seen any…
Friday 9 June, 7 pm The Sacred Heart Cathedral is a good place for singing – for both singers and listeners, and so it was especially good to hear this generally well-schooled and enthusiastic young choir, in a wide variety of songs.
Thursday, 8 June 2017, 7.00pm As I said in 2015 (in a review of the Big Sing National Finale concert), it is marvellous to find so many young people taking part in choirs and obviously enjoying it. Apparently there are more choirs in the…
Sunday, 29 May 2016, 3pm The choir is shortly to depart on an overseas tour, mainly in Europe and the United Kingdom, and including a choral competition in the Czech Republic. This was one of two farewell concerts; the other is to be in…
New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir in Concert directed by Andrew Withington, accompanied by Brent Stewart, with Rebecca Ryan (soprano)
Monday 2 November, 12:15 pm We have visits from overseas choirs from time to time, but I don’t think I’ve encountered one like this before. Words like enchanting, artless, exquisite, tender, crystalline, joyful, guileless, come to mind,…
Friday 9 October, 7:30 pm The name given to this concert, Te quiero , was borrowed from the song that ended the first half. It was an attractive, slightly sentimental song by Argentinian multi-talented musician, Alberto Favero. A nice…
Thursday 30 April 2015, 7 pm While it was always my intention to attend this concert, an email from a Dunedin friend that urged me to go said the following: “They filled the cathedral here, got a standing ovation and a rave review.”…
Saturday, 10th May, 2014 I’m normally accustomed to encountering seemly, well-regulated conversational tones and discreet movements of habitually circumspect classical concertgoers at Michael Fowler Centre concerts. However, I was aware…
Saturday, 26 April 2014, 7:30 pm I reviewed the choir almost exactly two years ago; now they are here for another school holiday course. My enthusiasm for their performance has not diminished, nor has the choir’s skill and versatility,…
Tuesday, 25 February 2014, 6:30 pm An attractive programme and renowned performers had Wesley Church pretty full, including many people sitting in the gallery; this, despite the hefty prices for a concert lasting one hour and ten minutes…
Thursday, 6 June 2013 More choirs from the region performed in the two gala concerts this year: 42 choirs from 22 schools; last year thirty choirs from nineteen schools performed. It is marvellous to find so many young people taking part…
Choral Music from The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, The Prince of Egypt , and by Samuel Barber, Trad. (arr. Philip Wilby and Gustav Holst), Schumann, John Bratton and Jimmy Kennedy (arr. Andrew Carter), Eric Whitacre, Saint-Saëns…
Saturday 18 August, 6.30pm Twenty-two choirs, including four ‘guest choirs’ which are not eligible for an award, from 16 schools came to Wellington for the annual singing jamboree known as The Big Sing, managed by the New Zealand Choral…
Sunday 12th August, 2012 Aside from the circumstance of this being the THIRD Mozart Requiem performance offered the Wellington concert-going public this year so far (after all, it’s only August!), I thought the program of this concert by…
National Boys Choir of Australia, directed by Peter Casey and Philip Carmody, accompanied by Robyn Cochrane (piano) and (in the Fauré) Richard Apperley (organ)
Saturday, 14 April 1012, 7.30pm Choral music seems to be on the up and up, not only here, but in other countries as well. Any choir would be exceedingly proud to sing as well as this choir does; all the more surprising, because the…
Choral songs and anthems by Handl, Bruckner, Pearsall, Bàrdos, Richard Madden, Stephen Lange, Anthony Ritchie, Andrew Baldwin, Helen Caskie, George Shearing, with arrangements by Douglas Mews, Christopher Marshall, Stephen Chatman
(recorded in the Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington) Listening to the very opening of Releasing the Angel , the first music track on composer Eve de Castro-Robinson’s new, eponymously-titled CD from Atoll Records, leaves me “on-the-spot…
7.30pm, Monday, 20 June 2011 Christophorus Kantorei is a choir from a high school in Altensteig in the Black Forest in Germany. The choir has become renowned for its excellence, and the singers tour overseas every four years. Our good…
Wednesday, 8 June 7pm and Thursday, 9 June 7pm It is great to be able to report that an increasing number of secondary school students are singing in school choirs: the numbers taking part in The Big Sing increases every year.
Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle – selections from, and pieces by Vaughan Williams, Rachmaninov, Rheinberger and others