Tally Ho! Dunedin Sound Songs & Singers

Southern Sinfonia presents: Tally Ho! Dunedin Sound Songs & Singers

Featuring: Opera star Anna Leese, Graeme Downes, Martin Phillipps, David Kilgour and Shayne Carter

Saturday 28 February 2015, 7.30pm Dunedin Town Hall

International soprano Anna Leese will sing with Southern Sinfonia in the Dunedin Town Hall on 28 February 2015, 7.30pm. But this time, the repertoire will be quite different.

Tally Ho! Dunedin Sound Songs & Singers will bring Anna and the Sinfonia together with a host of local singers and musicians to revisit more than 20 iconic Dunedin songs, many of them from the internationally-acclaimed period known as the Dunedin Sound. The Chills, The Clean, Straitjacket Fits, The Verlaines, The Bats, Look Blue Go Purple, The Puddle and The 3Ds are some of the bands whose songs will be included, underlining the ever-expanding strength of rock song-writing in the city since Flying Nun released The Clean’s Tally Ho in 1981.

"If you’d like to hear Anna sing, come to the concert. If you like orchestral music, come. If you are a fan of Dunedin bands, come. If you've lived in Dunedin the last 35 years and wondered what all the fuss has been about, come. These songs merely scratch the surface of what has gone on here," says Graeme Downes.

Songs chosen for the performance include Submarine Bells, She Speeds, Pink Frost, Getting Older, Randolph’s Going Home, Tally Ho, Southern Man, Point That Thing, The Love Of Ash Grey and I Don’t Want You Anyway . But there are some real surprises in the list too, best kept for the night. Fittingly, the concert will be conducted by versatile Dunedin musician Peter Adams who works many of Dunedin’s orchestras, choirs and brass bands.

Anna will have the lead vocal on more than a third of the 23 songs, while Kylie Price, Molly Devine and Metitilani Alo will also perform the iconic Dunedin material, as will established Dunedin Sound legends Shayne Carter, Martin Phillipps, David Kilgour and Graeme Downes. All of these singers will also intermittently appear as a backing chorus, while rock music instrumentation will come from Rob Burns (bass) and Robert Craigie (drums).

Southern Sinfonia General Manager Philippa Harris is excited by the innovative musical project. “Thanks to some Creative NZ funding and strong support from the University of Otago, this is finally going to happen. As an illustration of the integral role the University of Otago is to play in this project, three of University’s leading Contemporary Music Performance students will also feature as vocalists: Kylie Price, Molly Devine, and Lani Alo. Outside of the University, their interests are varied. Molly and Kylie both have thriving careers and have sung as opening acts for many illustrious artists, while Lani is part of Samoan churches in Dunedin and Auckland. Singing with the Southern Sinfonia will be yet another new experience for all three.

The orchestra really enjoys working with musicians from other genres, especially leading Dunedin musicians such as Shayne Carter, Martin Phillips, David Kilgour and Graeme Downes, as well as operatic superstar Anna Leese,” she says. “And these musicians too will help attract new audience members for the orchestra.”

“Dunedin’s music community is so closely-knit that many orchestral musicians also perform in local contemporary music groups, so the cross-over is already especially strong. This will make a wonderful start to 2015, blending some of Dunedin’s best-known music and muscisians: the subtle nuances of the orchestral Southern Sinfonia, performing Graeme Downes’ masterful orchestrations and the brilliant songs from the era of the Dunedin Sound.”

Ticket sales are open through TicketDirect and the Regent Theatre.

Phone 03 477 8597 or 0800 224 224 or visit www.ticketdirect.co.nz

Visit www.southersinfonia.org for more information on the event.

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