Kentoris Join with International Choirs
Kentoris Join with International Choirs
August 20, 2020 at 10:24 AM
In April this year, the College Premier Choir, Kentoris, was due to travel to the USA to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York, followed by a concert in Boston, Massachusetts. Disappointingly, like so many other events this year, the spread of a world-wide pandemic saw their travel plans curtailed.
The choir had been due to join the stage with the Boston City Singers, fellow New Zealand Choir, Cantare from Westlake Girls’ High, a choir from Croatia, and Keene State College Concert Choir from New Hampshire, with each choir asked to choose a choral piece from their own country to share. The two New Zealand choirs had selected ‘Hine e Hine,’ the well-known Maori lullaby written by Fannie Rose Howie in 1907, skilfully arranged for mixed choir by New Zealand composer, David Hamilton.
All five choirs had practised long and hard for their concerts and so despite missing the opportunity to travel and perform live, eleven of our Saint Kentigern choristers were offered an exciting opportunity to come together with the other four choirs in a ‘virtual music studio’ to perform for the world wide web – joining as one choir to sing ‘Hine e Hine.’
Jane Money, Artistic Director of Boston City Singers said, ‘Keeping the spirit of these cancelled concerts alive was vital for us, so singers from all five ensembles were invited to perform ‘Hine e Hine’ as a virtual choir. Six graduates of New Zealand’s extraordinary choral training programmes - David Hamilton, composer; Matthew Leese, conductor/co-producer/editor of the project; Anna Leese, soloist; Jane Money, Director of Boston City Singers, Jared Corbett, Director of Kentoris; and Fiona Wilson, Director of Cantare - collaborated to create this video, which drew 80 voices from 4 countries’
From Saint Kentigern, Mackenzie Alley, Emma Halliday, Julia Huang and Ivan Zhang can be spotted by their uniforms in the video whilst Catherine Chang, Jonson Chin, John Hayes,
Marion Mah, Brendon Tsoi, Cici Wu and Elsdon Yong also contributed to the vocal track. What an awesome opportunity!
Watch 80 Voices from 4 Countries sing ‘Hine e Hine’ here
