Join In Rugby World Cup 2011 Anthems

Join In Rugby World Cup 2011 Anthems


The national anthems of all 20 Rugby World Cup 2011 teams will soon be sung throughout New Zealand – and you can join in.

In a joint project between Rugby New Zealand 2011 and the REAL New Zealand Festival, the anthems have been recorded by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and a nationally selected choir brought together by the New Zealand Choral Federation.

From today, the recordings and words to the anthems are available for download from the Rugby World Cup 2011 and REAL New Zealand Festival websites.

The Anthems Project has been funded by the REAL New Zealand Festival Lottery Fund and aims to encourage New Zealanders to learn the national anthems to provide a warm welcome to visiting teams.

REAL New Zealand Festival Director Briony Ellis says announcing the Anthems Project now is perfect timing ahead of the RWC 2011 Roadshow which gets underway on Monday, taking a taste of the excitement of the Tournament and the Festival to 27 cities and towns from Bluff to Northland.

“Learning an anthem is a fun and simple way to ‘adopt’ a second RWC 2011 team, show support for that team and their fans during the Tournament, and show our international visitors why New Zealanders are renowned for our manaakitanga, or warm hospitality.”

“The Anthems Project has been incredibly exciting for us and offers the opportunity for New Zealanders to get behind the Tournament and be a stadium of four million.

”This is a great way for our communities to make the teams and fans they host really welcome.” A key challenge has been to ensure the anthems were accurate.

“We wanted to make sure there was consistent quality across all of the anthems and it’s fantastic to have had the recordings done by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the New Zealand Choral Federation. It’s great that two leading national music organisations are at the forefront of this project.”

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra chief executive Peter Walls said the orchestra was delighted to be involved. The NZSO engaged Slovakian conductor and composer Peter Breiner who is an expert on anthems and their arrangements.

Peter Breiner arranged the music for all the anthems except the Irish and New Zealand anthems. The Irish arrangement was done by Stephen Bremner and the New Zealand arrangement was by leading New Zealand composer Anthony Ritchie who also did all the choral arrangements. Peter Breiner shared the conductor role with Hamish McKeich.

“It’s been an exciting project and we’re looking forward to hearing the anthems and hoping people will download them and we’ll be familiar with them before the Tournament starts.”

The choir used for the recordings was selected from around the country with singers from Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

New Zealand Choral Federation’s John Rosser said with16 different languages used in the 20 anthems, the project was a challenge for the choir. Expert help was called in to assist with the pronunciation of the different languages.

“Singers are used to singing in other languages and are used to hearing sound and parroting it so we were able to work through the anthems quickly.”

John added, singing the Australian anthem was interesting for some choir members. “We’re used to hearing it in opposition,” he said. “But we had an Australian in the choir so made sure the accent was right where it mattered.”

As part of the Anthems Project, choral workshops will be held throughout the country for groups to learn the anthems. The first workshop is on Sunday 10 July in Napier. More information on the workshops will be announced soon.

To download the RWC 2011 national anthems, visit www.nz2011.govt.nz/anthems or www.realnzfestival.com/anthems or on each team’s section at www.rugbyworldcup.com
ENDS

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