World War 2 tribute in song
Violinist Orla Dunlop
Soprano Erin Connelly-Whyte
Central Otago Regional Choir is performing in Arrowtown this Saturday in a tribute concert to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War 2.
Among the numbers will be favourites the audience will even be invited to join in, including the choruses in The White Cliffs of Dover, It's a Long Way to Tipperary and Land of Hope and Glory.
Other standards being sung include Now is the Hour, A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square and We'll Meet Again.
Under the baton of Richard Madden, the accompanists include Peter Doyle (drums), Ariana Knudson-Hollebon (double bass) and Alison Frude (piano).
Also appearing are two talented young artists Orla Dunlop (violin), who'll play a movement from Saint-Saens' Violin Concerto No 3 in B minor, and Erin Connelly-Whyte (soprano), last year's ODT Aria Competition winner, who'll sing Franz Lehar's aria, My lips kiss with such heat.
Both will be accompanied by pianist Cameron Monteath.
Tickets for Saturday's concert, 7.30pm at the Arrowtown Athenaeum Hall, are $30 from undertheradar.co.nz, choir members, Arrowtown's Lakes District Museum, Arrowtown Pharmacy, Queenstown's Life Pharmacy Wilkinsons and Frankton's Summerfield's Pharmacy.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Otago Daily Times
a day ago
- Otago Daily Times
Toot'n'Croon turns 20
Lesley Askin (left), Alison Kerr, Chris Lang, Lynne James, Bevan Rogers (sitting), Geoff Tavendale, Hartley Ferrar, Lyall Walker, Jeni Sanderson, Warrick Sinclair (soundman). PHOTO: SUPPLIED Canterbury band Toot'n'Croon will celebrate their 20th anniversary on Saturday night. The band, which was formed in 2005 by Rangiora doctor Bevan Rogers, has played at many celebratory events and in many venues over the years. The band members have changed, but the foundation remains, and all the while their music has continued to be as popular as it was when they began, having changed with the times and the audience. It was Manhattan Transfer that inspired Rogers to get into the swing of forming a band, which still enjoys singing songs of the American harmony jazz group Manhattan Transfer he heard in the Christchurch Town Hall. ''When Manhattan Transfer sang the song Operator I noticed that the crowd really loved it, so I sent away to America for the sheet music — no internet downloads in those days — and in October 2004 I sang Operator at the doctors' concert (NZ Association of Artist Doctors), with the choir and piano, rhythm and brass backing me. ''It was such a blast that I thought, I want to do this more often than once a year. I'm getting older, so now is the time to start my own band.'' Their first public performance was in a variety concert in the Rangiora Town Hall to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War 2. It was only after the band had been going for five years that they started putting on evenings of stand-alone Toot'n'Croon music. ''The first was at Rossburn Receptions but we soon swapped to the Rangiora RSA, and we found that we were popular enough to put on about three evenings a year.'' Initially 'Toot'n'Croon sang songs from the 1940s, but as their audience grew younger, the music became bouncier with popular numbers, mostly from the 1950s and 1970s. ''Over time we found what sort of music was the most popular with people, and we have slowly changed to singing popular danceable music, mostly from 1950s rock and roll to 1970s Neil Diamond.'' The band's greatest love is having the audience sing along, tap their feet and dance, says Rogers. They have four singers – Bevan Rogers, Lesley Askin, Lynne James and Chris Lang. They perform songs with as much harmony as possible, supported by Alison Kerr on piano, Hartley Ferrar on saxophone, Jeni Sanderson on bass guitar, Geoff Tavendale on guitar and Lyall Walker on drums.
Otago Daily Times
21-05-2025
- Otago Daily Times
Youth choir hitting all the right notes
From standing ovations to high praise from critics, Dunedin's Southern Youth Choir is going from strength to strength. Rebecca Fox asks choir members and its director, John Buchanan, about its success. When members of the Southern Youth Choir begin to sing The Armed Man , many will be thinking of what their ancestors went through while serving in the armed forces. The "Mass for Peace" by Sir Karl Jenkins celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. Originally commissioned by the Royal Armouries Museum, it premiered at the Royal Albert Hall, London, on April 25, 2000, and was dedicated to the victims of the Kosovo crisis. Written for a choir with soloists and a symphonic orchestra, it is considered an anti-war piece, using the text of the Latin Mass and poetry and prose from around the world to tell the story of going to war and the horror and loss that results. It ends with a prayer for peace. It has been performed around the world more than 3000 times — including in New York on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The 3000th performance was conducted by Sir Karl, celebrating his 80th birthday, at the Royal Albert Hall last year. Southern Youth Choir director John Buchanan says they selected the work as it commemorates 80 years since the end of World War 2. "I think it's an appropriate work in these times to do." Having conducted the piece twice before, Buchanan is no stranger to the work, which he describes as very relatable for an audience. "He weaves poems to it, like one of the Rudyard Kipling ones about getting ready for war, going to war. Then we know that we could be going to die. It's quite a powerful poem. It was that Victorian thing about being brave and going off to die for your country. "And then it takes you to the actual battle. And then at the end there, there's this amazing part where the choir just makes this huge noise like the sounds of battle, the sounds of people dying, really horrific-sounding and then silence." It also includes "Benedictus" played on the cello, before finally concentrating on peace being better than war. "It ends up with a beautiful unaccompanied chorale, just about God shall wipe away your tears." Choir member Kate Koller, 20, a student from Christchurch, says it is also appropriate as it is coming up to the first Matariki since the last member of the 28th Maori Battalion (Sir Bom Gillies) died. "So it's coming up to the first chance to remember him and I guess the members of the Maori Battalion, so that's special." For the choir members it is also a chance to remember their own great and great-great grandparents' contributions to various wars around the world, as well as the impact on and ramifications for their families. Soprano and New Zealand Youth Choir member Rosie Auchinvole's great-grandfather on her father's side was a Royal Air Force squadron leader who was in a plane which crashed on the Isle of Mull during World War 2. Her family went to Mull in 2015 and visited a whisky shop, which turned out to be owned by the descendants of the people who saved her great-grandfather. "It was, like, middle of winter, high up on a mountain, he had to trek through the snow in the middle of the night [to save them]. It's just a crazy, weird story." Her grandfather Chris, who was in the armed forces in the United Kingdom, but now lives in Dunedin, sings in the RSA Choir and Auchinvole, who grew up in Dunedin, is an RSA choir scholar, so they sing together sometimes. "Which is really, really cute, so that's a nice connection to The Armed Man as well." The grandfather of fellow chorister George Warren was in the British Army for most of his working life and served a lot of time in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Holding his grandfather's medals, Warren, 25, of Kaiapoi, says his grandparents travelled to a lot of different postings over the years, and his late uncle was born in Germany while they were stationed there. "Performing this concert makes me think of Granddad in a way because, I mean, he's still with us and me and him used to attend all of the Anzac Day services together ever since I was a wee lad." That had only stopped this year as, after a car accident last year, his grandfather, who is 85, struggles to walk. Koller's great-grandfather was more like a grandfather to her, but died when she was 9. Before he died, the Royal Air Force navigator, who had been reluctant to talk about the war, spoke about his time in the Pacific. "He had some really cool stories ... [such as] one day the pilot dropped something so he bent over to pick it up right as a bullet went above his head. He had some close experiences. I think it really impacted him. My mum said her granddad was the same. He didn't talk about it at all. He survived everything he fought but he didn't talk about it ever." The worst family story for her was learning of her relatives in the mounted services having their horses killed before returning home. "I'm such a big animal lover and that has always got to me." Dunedin's Ewen Clarke-Wallace, 21, who is one of the longest-serving choir members, having joined at 15, will be remembering his great-grandfather, who died in Egypt at the beginning of World War 2. But other ancestors, two brothers from Lawrence, luckily returned from the war. Another was involved in the South African Light Horse Brigade in the Boer Wars. "It kind of just underscores the reasons why people went to war and why they actually did that. Because it's very easy to be like 'these silly people with their silly killing each other'. But they did that for a reason. And we are that reason. So it's important for me that there's, you know, both sides of that interaction." Buchanan says performing a full work like The Armed Man will be the biggest performance the choir has done in recent years. The choir will be performing the "reduced orchestration" option, so a cellist — choir member Portia Bell — flautist, three trumpets and a group of percussionists have been enlisted. Having conducted the piece before, he is impressed at how well the choir are singing it in rehearsal. "There's this wonderful youthful freshness that this choir's got. It's just wonderful." The choir was was established in 1992 by Maureen Smith and Anthony Ritchie for young singers aged 16-25, whether students or working. "It's open to all people but they're mainly university students, and it's had its ups and downs as far as numbers are concerned over the years." In recent years, they have stopped auditioning and opened the choir to anyone who has performed in a secondary school choir, and numbers have grown to about 65. The singers all enjoy the collegiality of the choir, the ability to meet others with similar interests and how it provides a break from the stress of study. The aim is to do at least two performances a year. Last year the choir performed Vivaldi's Gloria at the Big Sing, and have also performed concerts featuring a mixed bill of classical and popular music. "And those concerts got a standing ovation. They're singing really well. They are singing magnificently." Buchanan puts their success down to a change in the ethos of the choir, which has a student committee very involved in its work. "There's a good range of experience in the choir. There's people who have sung in school choirs their whole lives. There's people doing music degrees. People in national choirs. Everyone gets along." To see: Southern Youth Choir and chamber orchestra, The Armed Man , May 25, 2.30pm, St Paul's Cathedral.
Otago Daily Times
14-05-2025
- Otago Daily Times
Choir marks 80th anniversary of end of WW2
Photo: supplied The Southern Youth Choir will perform Karl Jenkins' "mass for peace" The Armed Man, as it marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War 2. The concert, to be held next Sunday, May 25, from 2.30pm in St Paul's Cathedral, will be conducted by Southern Youth Choir director John Buchanan and accompanied by organist David Burchell, pianist Sharon McLennan, and a small ensemble. Buchanan said the performance of The Armed Man would be the choir's major concert for 2025 and would include 62 singers, mainly tertiary students and some secondary students. "It is a dramatic and exciting piece, which is coming together really well in rehearsals," he said. "The choir is strong and singing really well, so I think it is going to be a special concert." Soloists from within the choir include Rosie Auchinvole (soprano), Tessa Campbell (alto), Teddy Finney-Waters (tenor), and Ewen Clarke Wallace (bass), and some sections of the piece will be conducted by student conductors. The Southern Youth Choir has been growing steadily in recent years, from a small group of 25 singers in 2021 to more than 60 singers this year. "We had a wonderful year last year, receiving standing ovations at our four concerts, which was very special — it has really spurred everyone on," he said. The choir is mainly run by a student committee, who enjoy selecting works to be performed and gaining experience in running the group. "It is a very interesting group to work with, and it's great to see them developing the skills to take the choir forward into the future," Buchanan said.
