Food Court Flash Mob Hallelujah

Here's another of those wonderful flash mob performances - quite a good one this! Enjoy - and thanks to Sarah Mitchell for pointing out this one!



On 13 November 2010 unsuspecting shoppers got a big surprise while enjoying their lunch. There are over 100 participants in this awesome Christmas Flash Mob.

Bach B Minor Mass practice files

There are two Noteworthy Composer versions of this on the NWC Scriptorum. http://nwc-scriptorium.org/bachj.html. One without words by John Hooper, the other with, by Carl Mill. What little I have listened to from both sound fine. Of course having the words attached to each note is a great help as you dont need to keep changing from the playing notes on your screen to your score.

Great concert

Fantastic singing choir, lovely exciting and entertaining music, sung energetically. In the audience I could hear almost every word and see most people faces! And Leta, I love Benjamin Britten's music, and love this piece for its originality, tunefulness and quirky humour. I have sung it elsewhere and so could anticiapte what was being sung which added to my pleasure and you didn't disappoint!

Choir sang it beautifully

We won't tell anybody of the wee glitches in the performance on Saturday evening - well done everybody, that was great! Here is what the reviewer, Marian Poole, had to say (ODT, Monday 22 November 2010):

A capacity house to St Paul's on Saturday evening applauded an all-British twentieth-century programme directed by David Burchell, very enthusiastically.

There is a problem, however, with presenting wordy liturgical works as pieces of performance art. Musical cohesion in Burchell's setting of "Te Deum Laudamus" was, as the programme notes predicted, mired by words. Presented with obvious pride by City of Dunedin Choir and Southern Sinfonia Ensemble under the composer's baton, it becomes, as work of art, happily innocuous.

Likewise, Finzi's "Dies Natalis" sung excellently by David Hamilton, gets itself bogged down with words. Finzi's ethereal music transports the ear to celebrate that everyday miracle - the birth of new life - and again speaks more effectively than the words.

By way of admittedly unfair contrast, Vaughan Williams' "Valiant for Truth" successfully conveys a similar message - that of hope in adversity or wishful thinking - weaving musical airs with poetically economical words. The Choir sang it beautifully without accompaniment and with confidence.

Britten's "Saint Nicolas" gave David Hamilton another opportunity to display his devotion to opera-like drama. The work explores many musical languages from Royal Schools' tonality to something close to serialism, while remaining less than dissonant, thus overcoming some of the verbal shortcomings - for example "And leaping from his mother's womb [St Nicolas] cried: God be Glorified"  (- yeah, right!).  The work is chilling at the start and ends with auspicious lines from the choir. St Nicolas's birth becomes a street carnival sung by St Paul's Choristers. James Burchell cries God's glory with knowing eyes. While overall the work is uneven, the word painting in the sea storm, the prison scene and Nicolas' ascent to heaven was most successful. Special commendation goes to pianists John van Buskirk and Sandra Crawshaw, the organist Rachel Swindells, the percussion ensemble and, of course, the pickled boys.

Bits about Baron Britten

Did you know that composer Benjamin Britten was appointed a member of the Peerage a few months before his death in 1976? He was briefly entitled Baron of Aldeburgh (which lies in the county of Suffolk, England).

On Aldeburgh's beach stands a sculpture, The Scallop, dedicated to Benjamin Britten, who used to walk along the beach in the afternoons. The piece is made up of two interlocking scallop shells, each broken, the upright shell being pierced with the words: "I hear those voices that will not be drowned", which are taken from Britten's opera Peter Grimes.

Britten was born in 1913 in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a dentist and a talented amateur musician. He showed musical gifts very early in life, and began composing prolifically as a child, with some 800 works and fragments preceding his early published works.

Britten was also an accomplished pianist, frequently performing chamber music and accompanying lieder and song recitals. As a conductor, Britten performed the music of many composers, as well as his own.

Early in his career, Britten made a conscious effort to set himself apart from the English musical mainstream, but contemporary critics distrusted his cosmopolitanism and admiration for composers such as Mahler, Berg, and Stravinsky, not at the time considered appropriate models for a young English musician. Britten's status as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century is now secure among professional critics. However, criticism of his music is apt to become entangled with consideration of his personality, his politics (especially his pacifism in World War II) and his sexuality.


For many musicians, on the other hand, Britten's technique, broad musical and human sympathies and ability to treat the most traditional of musical forms with freshness and originality place him at the head of composers of his generation. A notable tribute is Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten, an orchestral piece written in 1977 by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.


Personally I find much of Britten's music hard work to appreciate, but I will admit that once a work grows on one, it is there to stay! Amongst all the bang-clash-screech of his music there are also the most beautiful melodies and harmonies to be found - totally lovable!

So what do you think of Britten's music? Feel free to leave a comment; we'd love to hear your opinion!

Saint Nicolas on 20 November

Saturday 20 November 7:30 pm at St Paul's Cathedral

We invite you to an evening of lyrical music by Britten, Finzi, Vaughan Williams and Burchell.

This concert includes Benjamin Britten's cantata, 'Saint Nicolas', which tells of the legendary incidents in the life of Nicolas, patron saint of children, seamen, and travellers. The part of Nicolas is sung by the solo tenor David Hamilton, while the choir relates the adventures and ties the story together with prayers and praise.

The Choir is delighted to welcome back world-renowned tenor David Hamilton for this performance. David will also sing the exquisite 'Dies Natalis' by Gerald Finzi.

Also on the programme is David Burchell's 'Te Deum Laudamus' and 'Valiant-For-Truth' by Vaughan Williams.

For this performance the Choir is joined by players from the Southern Sinfonia.

Conductor: David Burchell

Programme vouchers are on sale now!
at Beggs MusicWorks, Moray Place
(cash or cheques made out to City of Dunedin Choir)
or phone Clare 476 2426
or email info@cityofdunedinchoir.org.nz

Adult $30; Unwaged $20;
School children free
Door sales will be available; Student door sales $10
http://cityofdunedinchoir.org.nz

We hope to see you there!

Hallelujah Chorus

Have you seen on youtube the "flash mob" perfomance (a Random Act of Culture) of the Hallelujah Chorus at Macy's in Centre City, Phladelphia. Now we could totally do that in the Meridian or Wall Street, apart from the small technical hitch of not having a rather large organ apparently permanently sited in the mall.

There are a number of versions, but if you check out http://www.youtube.com/user/cardifflodge, you'll spot the bass who hadn't actually learnt it off by heart!


Which reminds me.... there's no Messiah listed in next year's music. I do hope that's an oversight.... Even if the Town Hall is out of action, we could do two performances in two smaller venues - I 'd be happy to offer First Church! (Just give me time to clear it with Session first...)

A plea from Leanne's happy hens...

Dear singing humans at City Choir,

We chooks over at Leanne's farm are loving the spring. It's so sunny and warm on our feathers!

The warm weather is really getting us in the mood for laying lots of eggs. You might have seen some of our produce on the trade table from time to time. You might even have bought some, helping to raise funds for City Choir.


Rocky and Bullwinkle enjoy a splash in the bird bath.

We're now laying about ten eggs a day! The other days we laid twelve (from fourteen hens, that's pretty amazing).

We're even so clever we can lay eggs in different colours! (Beat that, cage chookies!)


Coloured eggs - everything from dark brown to vivid blue.

While this is fantastic for Leanne's family and friends, it does raise some logistics issues, and we thought you humans over at City Choir might be able to help out.

We need egg cartons! Lots of egg cartons! It doesn't matter whether they're six-packs or ten packs or dozen cartons, we need them! Then we can keep sending eggs out to City Choir and to Leanne's family and friends, helping everyone to eat lovely, free range eggs from happy, healthy hens like us.

Also, with Christmas coming up, Leanne can't give eggs to charity without boxes. Which would just be sad, to see our lovely eggs go to waste for want of packaging.

So if you can bring Leanne any spare egg cartons you have lying around (or even start saving them) Leanne would love to share the goodwill and return the favour with more of our lovely eggs for City Choir fundraising, and for you!


Sirius Black and Queen Lizzie the Third take a morning stroll.

*cluck cluck* Now that sounds great, don't you think?

Yours most egg-xellently,

The Chooks at Hazeltree Farm

(Sirius Black Rooster-in-Charge, Queen Elizabeth the Third, Fatsie Patsie, Butt Ugly, Clever Kate, Brown Nose, Margaret Thatcher, Smarty Pants, Gamera, Sauron the Great, Madonna, Plain Jane, Rocky, Bullwinkle and Prudence)

P.S - And if you don't know who Leanne is, look for the tallest first soprano. That's her.

Bass and Biochemist extraordinaire

Warren Tate

City of Dunedin Choir members can not only sing, they are also talented in many other ways, and sometimes supremely talented, like Warren Tate, Bass and Biochemist extraordinaire.

Today the newspapers and radio reports are telling the story of Warren's research and winning the prestigious Rutherford Medal.

The Rutherford Medal (known as the Gold Medal until 2000) is the premier award of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and has been awarded annually since 1991 in recognition of people who have made outstanding contributions to New Zealand society and culture in science, mathematics, social science, and technology. The medal is funded by the New Zealand government.
It is named after Ernest Rutherford, the New Zealand experimental physicist and Nobel laureate who pioneered the orbital theory of the atom.

Well done Warren, we are proud of you!

John Van Buskirk piano recital

John Van Buskirk will give a benefit piano recital for the Otago Community Hospice on Saturday, 13 November at 3:00pm in Marama Hall at the University of Otago.

The programme -- Preludes and Etudes – features 10 preludes by Anthony Ritchie interspersed with preludes and etudes by Liszt, Bach, Shostakovich. Matthew McConnell and Rachmaninov.

Anthony Ritchie’s 24 Preludes for the Piano were written in 2002. They “cover a whole variety of characters and moods”. Taking a cue from Bach and Shostakovich, Anthony has included some contrapuntal forms in his preludes, making several of the preludes very close in spirit to fugues, and in one case, a passacaglia. It was these procedures and dedications to these composers that sparked the idea of a mixed programme of the old and new as they cast light on each other.

John Van Buskirk is an American pianist now living in Dunedin. He appears with his wife Tessa Petersen as La Belle Alliance, a violin/piano duo. The duo is to perform in January at the Biennial Conference of the IRMT which is to be held in Dunedin. Tessa Petersen is the Lecturer in Violin at the University of Otago.

Tickets will be sold at the door -- $20 for adults, $5 for students and children with all proceeds going to the Dunedin Hospice.

10 facts you may not know about Benjamin Britten

As we're currently singing a bit of Britten, I thought I'd post these rather interesting facts about Benjamin Britten that came to light when I did some recent research in the interwebs.

Fascinating stuff. And because it is in print, it must all absolutely be true!

1. Britten was born at an early age, the son of an amateur dentist and a talented professional tap dancer and shoe shiner.
   
   As such he gleamed from head to toe and was cruelly nicknamed "Mr Sheen" in his childhood by his less shiny peers.
   
   
2. By the time he was nine, Britten was adept with piano and viola. His early experimental music with electric viola music and his amp set on eleven in his wayward youth may have been the inspiration for next-door neighbour Pete Townshend's guitar and viola smashing tendencies.
   
   
3. Indeed, the two musicians are reputed never to have spoken with one another after a particularly discordant late night session on Britten's electric viola.
   
   It is believed Britten became quite intoxicated and wrote "Nicolas and the Pickled Boys", leading Townshend to smash the electric viola and hurl abuse at Britten, swearing he'd pickle Britten's nether regions in a vat of London Dry, along with the remnants of the offending electric instrument.
   
   
4. Showing prodigious musical talent from the age of fourteen, Britten was an early composer, progressing to write the lovely Quatre Chansons Francaises for soprano and counter tenor.
   
   
5. Britten's now much maligned Trois Chansons Pour Aspirateur, dedicated to U.S President Hoover and written at the tender age of eleven, was one of the first works to raise household cleaning apparati to the status of musical instrument.
   
   
6. Britten was talented not just in music. He was Grand Master at the English Tiddlywinks Association from 1971-1979 - a remarkable feat, considering that for a significant part of this period he was dead.
   
   He was said to be unbeatable in both Winking strategy and Squidging technique, especially against the French in international tournaments when the referee was English.
   
   
7. Britten spent several years in the USA.
   
   Known to musicologists as "the forgotten years" these were remarkable largely for Britten's involvement in the counter-culture emerging at the time, and the sheer amount of orchestral works in which electric viola and aspirateur featured in close harmony.
   
   Many of these works have yet to find favour with listeners, and remain unpublished to this day.
   
   
8. He also wrote several choral works in this period in which, interestingly, repeated references to "reefers" and "reefing" are mentioned.
   
   
9. Britten was known to have three fixations throughout his life that are clearly represented in his music: electric viola, aspirateur "music" (and the other uses to which this "instrument" may be put between rehearsals) and, unfortunately, young boys.
   
   The latter led to a rather shady reputation developing, which no amount of great dischordant electronic viola music and aspirateur could allay.
   
   
10. We all know that Britten has written some well-known Christmas pieces, including Ceremony of Carols and Saint Nicolas. But he also wrote variations for the unexpectedly delightful pairing of tuba and harpsichord on the great Christmas classics Santa Claus is Comin' To Town and Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.
    

NOTE: These facts may not be entirely accurate.

Further reading in this series: Ten facts you may not know about Bach