ROYAL DUNEDIN MALE CHOIR

Evening Star, Issue 23421, 11 November 1939, Page 15

ROYAL DUNEDIN MALE CHOIR

As is usual at the final concert of the year, to be given at the Town Hall on Monday week, the Royal Dunedin Male Choir will include a number of works suited to the Christmas season. This year, by special request, the choir will sing Marchant’s ‘ Christmas Eve,’ a work for male choir and 1 soprano solo, and Miss Dora Drake will sing the latter part. This is a composition the choir has presented with success previously.

Once again the programme will include items by a, children’s combination. Dr Vernon .Griffiths, director of music at the King Edward Technical College, has worked out a new arrangement of the-old hymn ‘Adestes Fideles,’ with two-part treble and tenor and bass harmony, accompanied by two pianos, andl the children’s choir of the Technical College will assist the Male Choir in its presentation. The school choir will also be heard with the Male Choir in an arrangement of Gruber’s ‘Silent Night Holy Night,’ in which two unusual descants will be heard, inasmuch as the descant will be sung against four-part harmany instead of the other voices singing in unison, as is usual. Other items by the Male Choir will include Schuman’s ‘O Shining Sun’; Holst’s ‘ In. the Bleak Midwinter,’ with the Technical Choir singing the third verso to a humming accompaniment; ‘ Echo Song,’ with echo effect by a hidden male quartet; Chesterton’s ‘The King’s Men,’ a brisk, amusing ditty; ‘ My Grandfather’s Clock ’; a whirlwind Russian song, ‘ Dance, My Comrades ’: Schuraan’s ‘Wanderer’s Song of Joy and La Forge’s ‘ Fare-well at Morn,’ in which the choir will be heard in a humming accompaniment to the air in the first bass section. Miss Dora Drake will sing Bishop’s brilliant ‘ Lo. Here the Gentle Lark,’ and Mr F. Bell will play the important flute obbligato, with Mrs Ernest Drake at the piano. Miss Ethel Wallace (violinist) will play arrangements by Gil Dech, while Mr Aubrey Clark will be the choir soloist, with ati item from the ‘ Mikado.’ The plan will open at Begg’s on Thursday.