10 day Itinerary for 2012 Singdownunder Festival Visit

Day 1 Monday June 25th Afternoon arrival from South Australia

Day 2 Tuesday Touring “volcanic’ Auckland Singing with Auckland girls school Visit Auckland’s Skytower

Day 3 Wednesday After a breakfast in the hotel transfer to Aorere College for Maori Choral Workshop.   Program includes

• Maori welcome, Powhiri with speech and song from hosts and guests
• learning a Maori choreographed action song taught in sections by sections of the host choir, Sweet Sixteen
• welcome to the Maori Department of the school
• sharing a Maori “Hangi” lunch with the school’s Kapa Haka (Maori Cultural) group in the Maori dapartment.
• participation in the Aorere College unique “singing assembly” under choral director Douglas Nyce including coperformance of Maori song with host choir
• learning the long and/or short poi under instruction.  (See the ladies of the Patea Maori Club)

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“In the Jungle”, “Shosholoza”, from the Front Row Choir

The Front Row Choir (TTBB) seemed to have developed this track by putting together two songs of South African origin. “In the Jungle” started its life as “Mbube” first recorded in 1939 by Solomon Linda and his group the Evening Birds.

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SingDownunder and the Christchurch Earthquake

At 1pm (NZT) on Tuesday February 22nd Christchurch city centre was partially destroyed by a shallow earthquake almost directly underneath it.  There is substantial loss of life and many major and historic buildings in the centre of town are partly or wholly destroyed.  The destruction includes two of the beautiful choral venues, the Anglican Cathedral in Cathedral Square  and the Catholic Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament that we sang in last year.

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Lessons from the Inaugural SingDownunder Festival, 2010.

SingDownunder gives opportunities for international choirs to tour New Zealand. It particularly gives them four opportunities in New Zealand, none of which might be available otherwise.

1. It negotiates for visiting choirs to outreach with Maori and Polynesian choirs which are uniquely available in New Zealand, particularly Auckland.

2. It provides a competition/workshops/massed choirs/concert opportunity in Auckland’s best venue and with best resources (eg sound engineer, adjudicators).

3. It draws the choirs of metropolitan Auckland together at the competition and gives the visiting choirs the chance to see some of New Zealand’s best young choirs.

4. It creates a shared and partly shared touring itinerary in which international choirs visit New Zealand’s most famous scenic areas and sing with choirs and music groups in often beautiful small venues.

SingDownunder is also a means of achieving more international exposure for New Zealand choirs, particularly those not likely to be able to tour internationally and some who might not even get to sing in New Zealand’s main centres.

These ideas were supported by the inaugural event. All of the elements of the festival seemed to make up a diverse interesting appropriate experience for the Australian group. The NZ Choirs that participated, either in Auckland or in the hinterland, seemed to love the chance that the visitors brought.

The Australians included 10 choristers who were 19-21, ie older than any NZ school chorister, but there was no problem with this. The experience suggested that American junior college choirs can participate appropriately, for instance.

The feedback from the New Zealand choirs and correspondence from overseas suggests SingDownunder will have more choirs next year.

Im Deutschland

Saturday, 12th September

It had to happen. I have to confess weariness has finally set in & I abandoned Owen, happily up to his armpits in choirs in Wolfenbuettel & took myself off for some R & R. I have lost count how many days we have been going now without a break & have decided that it is time for one. I am hoping to persuade Owen that all will be well if we delay our departure for Hamburg & have a proper rest day tomorrow.

The festival in Wolfenbuettel is most impressive. As well as German choirs, there are choirs from the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Hungary….the list goes on…. Workshop presenters from all over. It seems so easy to have an international festival here where the choirs just have to cross the border by train. Despite New Zealand’s special charms it is still so much harder for us to convince folk to bring their choirs half way around the world. Last night we enjoyed a stunning concert in the old Petruskirche –the first half a German choir Schaumburger Jugendchor from Bueckeburg– and the second half Jugendchor Yonat from Israel. The minister gave the Israeli group a heart-felt welcome, apologising personally for the Holocaust. The Israelis shared the start of their Shabat with the audience by lighting two candles & greeting all with ‘Shalom Shabat’. It was all very moving. The singing was lovely too. Two excellent choirs with their own distinctive styles. Today the festival was taken outside to the townsfolk all over this pretty mediaeval town.

Yesterday when we arrived in Braunschweig, which is up the road from Wolfenbuettel, I went for an explore. It is a gorgeous town that has been settled continuously since before 800 AD so there is lots to see. Heading back to our little apartment with bags full of food I happened upon a VERY pretty little cobbled lane with houses painted every colour under the sun & I was surprised that there seemed to be no people about. Then I was taken aback by finding myself looking in on a long-legged girl sitting in a window manicuring her toe-nails. Then there was another girl, and another. Suddenly I came to the realisation that I was in a street a respectable hausfrau should not be seen in with her shopping & what is more, from the look of some of the women I saw mincing about in their underwear, there is still hope for me, should I ever decide to change my profession!

Gosh, a few days slip by & how many cities do I have to look back on? We LOVED Berlin! The train station can out Hong Kong Hong Kong. We walked across Muzeum-insel & along Unter-den-Linden to the Brandenburg Gate where there was a ‘get the troops out of Afghanistan’ demonstration. We watched the sunset as Berliners do, reflected in the huge windows of Reichstag & then wandered on to have dinner down by the lovely River Spree. Next day we visited Anna Kovacs, a Hungarian who has lived a long time in the States, at the Berlin Brandenburg International School & we sat drinking coffee in the sun & she spoke enthusiastically about Zoltan Kodaly & rattled off the names of a whole string of choral directors who she was sure would be Most Interested in our festival.

And before that it was Prague – whew!

The Australian Choirs are Coming

Our choral festival was primarily designed for northern hemisphere school choirs who are on holiday at the time. But we have had correspondence from Aussies which is very welcome; they are very good and they are our neighbours after all. Have a look at Marryatville High School (http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=X1BvSy2N4pg ) singing “Elijah Rock”  as an example.

Australian choirs are in school-term time.  We want to maximize the chances for them to mix with the Auckland and international school choirs and offer them opportunity to participate as they choose, in the competition day, the Maori Choral music day or the whole package