Choral and brass combine to create SPRING FEVER

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Choral and brass combine to create SPRING FEVER

Lively, bouncy, invigorating and exciting – that’s the promise of SPRING FEVER, a special concert event combing choral and brass music to celebrate the new fresh season.

The Christchurch City Choir’s SPRING FEVER concert, which is being presented in conjunction with Woolston Brass at the Christchurch Town Hall on 17 October, will include a world première of a new work by a Christchurch-born composer, a magnificent organ item, and a spring-themed concert of lively choral and instrumental works.

The concert combines the country’s premier brass band, Woolston Brass, with one of the country’s best symphonic choirs Christchurch City Choir, adds the brilliance of the Sir Gil Simpson Organ Scholar at ChristChurch Cathedral, Jeremy Woodside, and the youthful voices of 25 singing scholars, under conductors Brian Law and Graham Hickman.

The Choir and Woolston Brass have previously combined to present the very popular ANZAC concerts at the Town Hall, but this is a new innovation in a concert format. Woolston Brass Music Director Graham Hickman said the band was excited to be working with the Choir again and they had chosen several special works for the lively spring-themed programme.

There will be considerable interest in the première of Christchurch-born composer Kenneth Young’s Pastorale. Kenneth Young began composing as a 15 year old student at Cashmere High School, under music teacher Frank Dennis. Since then he has composed more than 45 works, many commissioned by NZSO, Chamber Music New Zealand and other orchestras. He was previously Principal Tuba with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and had earlier played with Christchurch Symphony and National Youth Orchestra.

Graham Hickman, Music Director for Woolston Brass, and the NZ National Secondary Schools Brass Band, and a former Bandmaster of the Army Band, will conduct the Woolston Brass.

“We’ll be playing the Tydfil Overture, which was probably the first original work written specially for a brass band, the Cyfartha Band, founded in 1838 by iron magnate Robert Crawshaw, who lived in nearby Cyfarthfa Castle near the industrial town of Merthr Tydfil. The handwritten music by Welsh composer Joseph Parry was rediscovered about 13 years ago in an attic in the castle – a typically lovely story about the music we play.”

“We will take advantage of the Town Hall’s wonderful Reiger organ to perform the Romantic and full Cathedral-sized Finale from French composer Saint-Saën’s Symphony No.3 with Organ, with organ soloist Jeremy Woodside. It was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society of England, written in 1886, dedicated to Liszt who had died earlier that year, and premiered in London.”

The 40 musicians in Woolston Brass, the current national A Grade Champion Band and Champion Marching Band titleholders, are aged from 14 – 70+.

There will be items from the Choir accompanied by a brass quintet, and Jeremy Woodside, who has recorded two CDs of music from Christ Church Cathedral Organ.

SPRING FEVER was planned by Music Director Brian Law to celebrate new beginnings with a joyful concert of music - little did he think it would come after one of the coldest winters in recent memory!

The Choir’s programme includes works by Halley and Holman, and links England, Canada and New Zealand, the three countries closely intertwined in Brian Law’s life.

Derek Holman’s Weatherscapes was commissioned for the Ontario Choral Festival in 1973. Holman, like Brian Law, was born and educated musically in England, and later immigrated to Canada where he played a significant role in the cultural life there, just as Brian Law himself did before he came to Christchurch in 1991.

Brian also has strong links with Grammy Award winning composer Paul Halley, who wrote Love Songs for Springtime. Halley, too was born in England and did much of his musical education in Ottawa, then returned on an organ scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge. He was Director of Music at the Cathedral of St John the Devine in New York for 12 years. The Ottawa Choral Society commissioned Love Songs for Springtime in 1981. In 1989 Brian Law conducted the Ottawa Choral Society on a tour of Spain, where they performed Halley’s Love Songs.

The concert will also feature Pastiche Quebeçois, three Canadian folksongs arranged by Howard Cable, who worked with greats such as Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Bob Hope, Victor Borge and Danny Kaye. And also like Brian Law, he was an opera director amongst a wide span of musical interests and achievements.

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