Unusual performance by Chch Cathedral choir

Press, 28 September 1988, Page 24

Unusual performance by Chch Cathedral choir

The choir of the Christchurch Cathedral will present a recital in the Cathedral on October 6 at 8 p.m. The choir, which seldom gives recitals outside its liturgical services, will sing in the reordered sanctuary at 8 p.m. The programme will include Schubert’s ‘‘German” Mass in F” and music by Purcell, Handel, Harwood, Faure, Mathias, Britten and Philips. David Childs, the master of the

choristers, will play an organ work by Langlais and will be joined by Mark Hodgkinson in two works for trumpet and organ by Giovanni Viviani and Eric Schmidt. Hodgkinson received his early musical training at the Christchurch School of Instrumental Music. After being appointed principal trumpet of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, he spent 1980 to 1984 studying trumpet in Sweden on a Swedish

Institute scholarship. In 1986 he was musical director of the Perkel season of “Eugene Onegin” in Auckland and in the same year he acted as assistant conductor fqr Mercury Opera’s “Tales of Hoffman.” He now lives in Christchurch where his teaching activities include conducting Orchestra 3 and supervising the Brass section at the C.S.I.M. Since May he has been conductor of the Christchurch Orchestral Society.