Being a bit of a "Messiah-buff" I was, I must admit, excited at the prospect of attending this concert, as I had never heard the famed Mozart "arrangement" of the music. I was naturally intrigued as to how it all would sound, and if and to what extent Mozart might have done the equivalent for his time of what Hamilton Harty in the 1920s and Eugene Goosens in the... read more

A varied concert of items telling stories was given by the Wellington Youth Choir, under its Acting Musical Director.  It began in great style, with ‘The Circle of Life’, from the movie The Lion King; the music by Elton John and Lebo M, with lyrics by Time Rice.  Drums and other percussion instruments plus whistling opened the piece, along with a very good male solo.  The choir had impressive... read more

Cantoris are to be congratulated on a very good performance of Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man, as is their new director, Brian O’Regan, and accompanying musicians. As soon as the first drum tattoo echoed through St Andrews, I was glad to be there. The choir made a wonderful start as well, producing a rich and full sound that filled the church. Indeed, it was the warmth and depth of the... read more

The members of that musical gem of the Kapiti Coast, the Kapiti Chamber Choir, have reason to be well pleased with their new conductor Eric Sidoti. His debut concert with them at St Paul's church in Paraparaumu on Sunday, April 21 had everybody, singers and audience, smiling. They presented a well chosen and balanced programme entitled The Romantics, a pleasing mix of the familiar and the unknown. The delightful... read more

There was a very near full house at the Michael Fowler Centre for this, now rather rare occasion. In earlier years the NZSO and the Orpheus Choir joined for the annual December performances every year or so, but for a while the tradition was broken. For many years it became common for the Orpheus Choir to take turns with other Wellington choirs to sing the oratorio.

This resumed relationship might... read more

This concert was in part a fund-raiser by an unauditioned choir, to mark Christmas and the end of the year. It was brave to have tackled a fairly sophisticated contemporary work, though not written in an avant-garde style which an amateur choir would have difficulty making musical sense of. Nevertheless, there were challenges in Rutter's rhythms and harmony, in control of dynamics and other interpretive aspects that would have... read more

The Bach Choir is one of Wellington’s more distinguished choirs, founded in 1968 by the late Anthony Jennings, a notable harpsichordist and one of New Zealand’s leaders  in the revival of interest in the authentic performance of baroque and early music. Though the choir’s fortunes have fluctuated over the years, it has experienced a steady improvement in performance standards and confidence under Stephen Rowley. Vivaldi’s transition from a minor, one-piece composer... read more

Praise be to Stuart Douglas and the Kapiti Chamber Choir for giving Kapiti residents the opportunity to hear arguably the best Christmas music ever written, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. Accompanied by an excellent orchestral ensemble they gave an enormously joyful performance from the first thrilling trumpet notes of Andrew Weir’s piccolo trumpet to the full bodied final chorale. They were obviously in the hands of a conductor with a great... read more

The last of the series of concerts from The Tudor Consort that sought connections between music of the Renaissance and the present gave rise to the most recondite relationship with links that drew together the medieval story of Tristram and Iseult (as it is in Matthew Arnold’s narrative poem), and a little known work of Messiaen, Cinq rechants (‘five refrains’) for 12 unaccompanied singers. The Cinq rechants form the third... read more