ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Focus On Youth In Choir Concert

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31786, 17 September 1968, Page 8

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Focus On Youth In Choir Concert

The emphasis will be on youth on Friday night in a concert in the Civic Theatre by the Christchurch Harmonic Society and the Christchurch Civic Orchestra under the conductor, William Hawkey.

Soloists, repertoire, format, and even the time of performance—the concert will start at 6 p.m.—have all been chosen with young people in mind.

The music, all short pieces, has been chosen to demonstrate all aspects of both the choir and orchestra. There will be items by the full choir, items by the choir and orchestra, by mixed voices, by sections of the choir, by male voices and by female voices, and even instrumental items which have been drawn from the choral repertoire and arranged for orchestra.

The whole concert will be as informal as Mr Hawkey can make it. He will talk “a little bit” before each item about the composer, the music, or the use of voices or instruments, and will attempt to present as wide a variety of choral music as possible in the time available.

. There will be two poung soloists—the pianist, Suzanne Purnell, and the soprano, Sylvia Bradley—and two guests of honour: Gloria Cavan, author of “Not a Leg to Stand on,” and Bernard Smyth, the former compere of the “Town and Around” programme on CHTV3 who is now director of extension studies at the University of Canterbury. The whole concert—including the commentary—-will be repeated as a public concert on Saturday night, which will be broadcast. “It is the first programme of this type that we have attempted, and I am really

looking forward to it,” Mr Hawkey said yesterday. “I think it will go well—the rehearsals with the choir and orchestra have been terrific”.

He said the choir got the idea for a youth concert from a programme it saw in Sydney by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under John Hopkins. "But the Sydney programmes differ from ours in that they tend to concentrate on longer works—five or six in a concert—and have less emphasis on choral music. “We are concentrating on choral music naturally, because we are a choir—and we are using short works,” If the programme is well received youth concerts of choral music may become a permanent part of the city’s musical year. “I have ideas for extensions of what we will be doing in this concert and if the recation on Friday is favourable they may be worth favourable consideration,” Mr Hawkey said. But it will be next year before Mr Hawkey will have a chance to present further youth concerts—his time as conductor of the choir is fully booked for the rest of this year. Early next month the Harmonic Chorale will go to the West Coast, for concerts in Westport and Reefton, sponsored by the university’s extension studies department; a week later, on October 13, the full choir will join the Christchurch Civic Orchestra for one of its Sunday-after-noon prom concerts; and on October 23 the choir will give a concert in Waimate. In November there will be a concert of carols, with the assistance of choirs from five Christchurch secondary schools; and in December carol singing in a shop and a factory, and three performances of Handel's “Messiah”.