Magical musical night
The Central Otago Regional Choir will perform Magical Music from Mozart to Madden in Arrowtown, Wanaka and Alexandra at the start of December. The performance will showcase the choir performing a variety of music including several songs by the highly-regarded New Zealand composer Richard Madden QSM, who will also be conducting them.
This year will be one of the biggest performances for the choir – in addition to performing some rarely-heard works from Richard Madden, they will also welcome organist Kemp English and his partner, Assistant Concert Master of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Yuka Eguchi. Sarah Hubbard, South Island finalist in the Lexus Song Quest opera competition, will also sing as a soloist at the show. Kemp and Yuka will premiere some music that has been especially written for them by a Norwegian composer at the concert, too.
The choir start rehearsing for the end of year shows around three months in advance and the songs they sing are usually chosen by the musical director. Madden was persuaded by the choir this ayear to include his music.
Allie Frude, the rehearsal pianist accompanist and member of the choir says this on Madden, “He’s a very humble man. He’s extremely gifted but doesn’t say a lot about his own music, but he should because it’s wonderful.
“We’re very lucky because we’re performing five of his pieces in the concert. His son is a Lay Clerk at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle and he’s introduced his father’s music to his fellow choristers, so it’s been recorded over there and has been played at services in the UK in front of the Queen. It’s definitely worth hearing, but you don’t hear it as much here, which is a shame.”
Allie first got involved with the choir when she moved to Queenstown – she had been involved in choral singing for most of her life. She slowly made connections with various groups including the Central Otago Regional Choir.
“To start with I began as a chorister but as time went on there was an opening for me to accompany the choir. I still wanted to sing, so they created this job for me whereby I accompany them during the rehearsal, and then at the time of the concert I hand it over to whoever is going to accompany us.”
The programme will be interspersed with favourites from the choral repertoire such as Franck’s Paris Angelicus, Mozart’s Ave Verum, and Bach’s Jesus Joy. The choir hope to bring positivity and joy to the community after some troubled times. The choir welcome all ages and Allie says that children have really enjoyed themselves in the past.
“We see grandparents who want to introduce the young ones to a different sort of music from what they may be used to listening to. It’s amazing to see their faces light up. They come in initially like ‘what’s that?’ and then as time goes on, you see them change and they really take it all in. You can tell it’s made an impression and often it’s something completely unknown to them – string players and singers all in a group with no guitars. It’s just lovely watching them take it all in,” says Allie.
The Central Otago Regional Choir will perform at Arrowtown Athenaeum Hall on Saturday 3 December. Tickets are available at a range of locations including Life Pharmacy Wilkinsons, Queenstown, Unichem Summerfield’s Pharmacy, Frankton, and Lakes District Museum, Arrowtown.
