City of Dunedin Choir

The City of Dunedin Choir (trading name of the Dunedin Choral Society Incorporated) is a community choir in Dunedin, New Zealand. It accepts singers of all age groups from the wider Dunedin community and performs large-scale classical choral works. The choir's membership grew from an initial 45 to around 130 as of 2009.[1] The Choir is a member of the New Zealand Choral Federation (NZCF), which was formed in 1985 to promote high quality choral singing in New Zealand.[2]

Contents

Repertoire

The choir's repertoire encompasses Baroque, Classical and Romantic orchestral works, and includes contemporary New Zealand choral music. The choir is usually involved in four or five concerts a year, and regularly performs with the Southern Sinfonia.

History

In 1863 the Choral Society was formed. The following year this choir was absorbed into the Dunedin Philharmonic Society with George West as conductor.[3] With varying success the Dunedin Philharmonic Society carried on until 1870. The name "Dunedin Choral Society" was introduced the following year. At this point Mr. West resigned and Mr. A.J. Towsey was appointed conductor. In 1879 Mr. West was reappointed conductor to the Society.[4] Records of the activities of the Society in the following years are scant and musicians were mainly occupied with preparing works for the Exhibition of 1890. At a meeting of the Exhibition Choir the Dunedin Choral Society was affirmed and continued functioning under the conductorship of Mr. James Coombs. In 1891 the Society was in recess due to financial difficulties, but was reformed again in 1897.[5] The existence of the choir has since been continuous. Notable past conductors include Sidney Wolf (1914–1922), Victor Galway (1922–1925) and Jack Speirs (1966–1973).

The Choral Society changed its name to Schola Cantorum in 1967, upon merging with the University Union Choir, and then to City of Dunedin Choir in 1993, the year it celebrated 130 years of existence. However, through all these "trading name" changes, the legal entity has remained Dunedin Choral Society Incorporated.

The Choir's immediate past patron was the then Governor General of New Zealand, Dame Silvia Cartwright. The current conductor is David Burchell.

References

  1. ^ http://sounz.org.nz/contributor/performer/1755
  2. ^ http://www.nzcf.org.nz/regions.php?choirid=80
  3. ^ Campbell, Margaret. Music in Dunedin. Dunedin: Charles Begg and Co., 1945, p. 40.
  4. ^ Campbell, Margaret. Music in Dunedin. Dunedin: Charles Begg and Co., 1945, p. 41.
  5. ^ Campbell, Margaret. Music in Dunedin. Dunedin: Charles Begg and Co., 1945, p. 42.

The archives of the Dunedin Choral Society Incorporated are held by the Hocken Collections, Dunedin, under the reference number MS-2086.

External links