Please click here to read the full review.
In a nutshell, as the Festival brochure put it, Ata Reira promised an evening of award-winning choirs, majestic voices and Te Reo Maori in song… click here to read the full review
Andrea Gray
Andrea Gray has worked in the public and private sector in roles including knowledge and information management, introduction of web services to support business service delivery and relationship management. She is currently a General Manager in the Environmental Protection Authority. She has a BMus, BA (Linguistics) and an MA (Library & Information Studies).
She spent many years enjoying supporting her children in their musical endeavours, including a great deal of choral work at their respective secondary schools. This rekindled her desire to sing and she has been a member of the Orpheus Choir of Wellington and, intermittently, the Chorale ensemble of the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul since 2006.
Upon her appointment as C
hair in April she said “I am delighted to be able to serve the Choirs Aotearoa NZ Trust and intend to build on strong foundations put down by previous Trustees, management and artistic personnel and the choir members themselves whose work we support, but without whom we would not exist.”
A new biography on Peter Godfrey
Peter Godfrey: Father of New Zealand choral music has been seven years in the making and was released in October 2015. ‘The book draws on conversations with Peter himself, colleagues, friends and pupils throughout his life – people such as Peter Averi, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Karen Grylls, David Hamilton and Nick Tipping. Peter also recalls encounters and friendships with leading figures in the world of music like Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten.’ Scoop October 2015
‘Immeasurable’ describes Peter Godfrey’s influence on choral music in New Zealand. The only person to have been chorister, choral scholar and director of music at King’s College, Cambridge, Peter brought those exacting standards to choirs in this country, developing them to international standard.
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The world’s choral community is sad to hear of the death of Sir David Willcocks at the age of 95. Sir David paid regular visits to New Zealand and Australia giving concerts with the NZSO and orchestras of the ABC and was associated with many of this country’s choirs.
Sir David Valentine Willcocks CBE MC, born 30 December 1919 in Newquay, Cornwall, was an internationally acclaimed British choral conductor, organist, composer and music administrator.
He began his musical training as a chorister at Westminster Abbey from 1929 to 1934 and in 1938 took up the appointment of organ scholar at King’s College. During the Second World War he served as an officer in the British Army, and was decorated with the Military Cross for his actions during the Battle of Normandy.
From 1957 to 1974 he became Director of Music at King’s College, Cambridge. He made numerous recordings with the college choir and toured extensively giving concerts worldwide. David Willcocks was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours of 1971 and created a Knight Bachelor in 1977 in the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Honours.
In 1980 Sir David came to New Zealand to conduct the one-year-old National Youth Choir at the invitation of its founder, Guy Jensen. The concert with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra had as its major work Tippett’s ‘A Child of Our Time’. It was a great success and is fondly remembered by founding alumni of NZYC.
Sir David returned to New Zealand in 1988 to conduct a performance of Orff’s ‘Carmina Burana’ with members of the Youth Choir combined with the NZ Secondary Student’s Choir together with the NZSO in Wellington Town Hall. John Button in the Dominion reported that the packed hall …’received the performance with enormous enthusiasm.’
In June the NZ Youth Choir heads to Europe for its 2016 European Landmark Tour. This includes performances in Singapore, the International Festival of Academic Choirs in the Czech Republic, Le Quesnoy in Northern France, Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, Oxford University Church, St Georges Chapel Windsor, St John’s Smith Square in Westminster, Ely Cathedral and St John’s College Chapel, Cambridge. Read more
Arne Herrmann
In February I received the resignation of Roger Lloyd, who has been the Chief Executive of Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand Trust for approximately five years. Over this period Roger has endeavoured to raise the public profile and appreciation of our two national choirs – the New Zealand Youth Choir and Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir – through social media and in-house publications. Using his experience leading other major music organisations, he has introduced a professional arts culture into Choirs Aotearoa’s management and has striven to support the artistic vision of our organisation.
Some personal highlights for Roger include the Mozart Requiem performance by Voices NZ and Orchestra Wellington in Wellington Cathedral in June 2012 and the joint recital ‘Ata Riera’ by our choirs in the Auckland Arts Festival last year. As with the tour to North America in 2013, Roger has been the architect of the upcoming NZ Youth Choir European Tour in July this year. The Trustees greatly appreciate the contribution Roger has made over the last five years. He will leave the organisation in very good shape on 27 May.
We have been recruiting Roger’s replacement and I am delighted to announce that the Trust has appointed
. Arne has secured this position after a thorough and well contested process which attracted over 20 high calibre applications. We were generously supported in the recruitment process by JacksonStone & Partners. Arne will commence his Chief Executive position on 28 May. His first official appearance will be at the Youth Choir’s pre-tour “Farewell” concert on 29 May in Wellington.
Arne has worked extensively in arts administration with management and leadership roles at the Auckland Arts Festival, New Zealand Festival, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, the National Jazz Festival, and consulting roles in business development and marketing with organisations such as New Zealand Opera, Te Matatini National Kapa Haka Festival and Indian Ink Theatre Company.
The Trustees are looking to Arne to lead Choirs Aotearoa into its next phase of development – supporting the growth in the reach and impact of the wonderful music that our artistic team and singers produce. His understanding of and passion for the performing arts will be a great asset for Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand Trust.
Andrea Gray
On its first international concert stop over on its 2016 European Landmark Tour, the New Zealand Youth Choir’s concert at Singapore’s Victoria Concert Hall has SOLD OUT.
The New Zealand Youth Choir (NZYC) won the hearts of audiences and the judges when achieving a clean sweep, winning all four categories they competed in, at the 24th annual International Festival of Academic Choirs in Pardubice, Czech Republic over the last four days. Then, this morning NZ time, they crowned their outstanding performance by winning the overall grand prize – the Grand Prix.
“The choir worked incredibly hard and had developed a culture of doing the job at the time,” says Music Director David Squire. “The highlight was when the choir delivered the most intense performance yet of Waerenga-a-Hika which had audiences and judges in tears.”
“They sang with meaning and heart, which blew the judges away. We knew we were delivering something really special from New Zealand and its culture to European audiences.”
The NZYC competed against 15 European choirs from Russia, Poland, Latvia, and Czech Republic.
The choir will now continue its international tour to Le Quesnoy, a small town in northern France, which was liberated by the NZ Division just four days before the end of WW1, to participate in their memorial services.
From there NZYC will travel to Paris to participate in High Mass at Notre-Dame Cathedral singing an all-Kiwi programme and then to the UK to perform in Oxford, Windsor Castle and the prestigious St John’s Smith Square concert hall in Westminster.
List of Achievements:
Grand Prix – Overall winner
1st place (and gold standard) – Category: Mixed choirs
1st place (and gold standard) – Category: Art song of a particular era or style
1st place (and gold standard) – Category: Folklore of the choir’s nation
1st place (and gold standard) – Category: Spiritual, gospel, jazz and pop
(Watch NZYC performing a concert in the Czech Republic this week)
