Youth Choir ‘Farewells’ Auckland for European Tour

8 June 2016

From Notre Dame to Windsor Castle – the New Zealand Youth Choir ‘Farewells’ Auckland for European Tour

At the end of June, 49 young New Zealand singers will head to the other side of the world to compete and perform as the New Zealand Youth Choir in some of the most prestigious venues in in Europe.

This European landmark tour is the culmination of three-year’s planning and rehearsals. The young singers, aged 18 to 25, have undertaken intensive courses, vocal training, conducting classes, language lessons and performance work in preparation for this trip of a lifetime.

The New Zealand Youth Choir (NZYC) has been on 10 international tours before, successfully competing and performing. They won the 1999 Choir of the World title at the prestigious Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in Wales.

This year, NZYC will be competing at the International Festival of Academic Choirs in Pardubice in East Bohemia, Czech Republic. Although this five-day singing competition has been running since 1968 hosting choirs from around the world, this will be the first time a New Zealand group has participated.

The first stop for NZYC will be Singapore for a performance in the recently refurbished Victoria Concert Hall, organised in conjunction with the Singapore Youth Choir.

NZYC’s Music Director David Squire says, “Performing in these glorious venues in London and Paris will be a mind-blowing experience for all of us. There is a lot to look forward to, including the opportunity to be part of the WW1 memorial service at Le Quesnoy in France.”

Le Quesnoy is a small town in Northern France which was liberated by the NZ Division just four days before the end of WW1. The town has a very special relationship with New Zealand and the NZYC has a link as well, in that former choir member Robin Averill had a Great Uncle, the famous Dr Leslie Averill, who was the first person to cross the ramparts of the township to liberate it from German occupation. Squire and the singers are preparing themselves for a moving service and concert at Le Quesnoy.

From there the Youth Choir will travel to Paris to participate in High Mass at Notre-Dame Cathedral, singing an all-Kiwi programme that includes Andrew Baldwin’s Petite Mass, David Hamilton’s Ave verum corpus and David Griffith’s Beata Virgo.

Across the English Channel, they then perform in University Church in the heart of Oxford and St George’s Chapel in the grounds of Windsor Castle.

The tour highlight performance event will be at the St John’s Smith Square concert hall in Westminster, one of London’s main classical music venues.

Then, following a lunch-time concert in the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral, the tour closes with a performance in the Cambridge Summer Music Festival in the famous St John’s College Chapel.

This will be the NZYC’s eleventh overseas trip in its 37-year history. The choir has prepared an eclectic repertoire of music ranging from a 17th-century anthem by Peter Phillips to contemporary New Zealand music and kapa haka waiata.

Tickets for Auckland’s Dorothy Winstone Centre ‘Farewell’ concert are available from Eventfinda and on the door from 6pm.

More info: http://www.choirsnz.co.nz/youth/tours/2016

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