Voices New Zealand is embarking on an international tour in 2025 to Sweden, Germany, France and the U.K
Details of concerts to come, this will be an extraordinary tour marking our last tour with Dr Karen Grylls as our Music Director.
We are excited to bring our choral stories from Aotearoa to the world stage, and perform in one of the most iconic venues around the world (can you guess?)
Victoria Kelly Stabat Mater (World Premiere NZSO Commission)
Rossini Stabat Mater
Rossini’s majestic Stabat Mater is based on the thirteenth-century liturgy describing the Virgin Mary’s suffering at the crucifixion of her son, Jesus. This text, written by a priest and influencing the perceived role of women throughout Western history, stands in dialogue with Kelly’s, a contemporary appraisal of Mary, motherhood, and women.
Joining us is acclaimed Italian conductor Valentina Peleggi, increasingly sought after as an inspired conductor of opera. Concerto.com declaimed that Peleggi “has Rossini in her blood […and displays] radiant leadership.”
Wiremu has imagined that one of the passengers may have had a state-of-the-art Walkman containing a recording of the Requiem. At the moment of impact, the notes are carried into the Antarctic air by the winds around Ross Island, up Mt Erebus, across from the continental mainland, over the icebergs of the surrounding seas. Fragmented, scattered, broken, the notes are often recognisable as Mozart, but not always.
Reimagining Mozart is presented in partnership with the Dunedin Arts Festival and Wānaka Festival of Colour.
Programme
Artists
“I am a citizen of horizons…
A citizen with no homeland…
What I do: I travel…
My hometown: all the cities…” Majed Amin
Horizons brings music, poetry and song from the old world and the new to map a story that bears witness to the ambiguous emotions of migration: the inescapable loss and trauma, the unexpected beauty and joy, the cruelty and violence and the endless and often futile dreams of a new home.
In this special immersive concert experience, audiences will be free to sit, stand or move around the ‘set’ following choir, storyteller Nathaniel Lees and the sound of drums to a peaceful pasture of chamomile, the excited hubbub of a bustling market and the craggy promontories of farewell.
Songs, stories and experiences from lands very much warmer than this one to snow-covered peaks thousands of miles away from here will open your hearts to the ebb and flow, the tragedy, tumult and celebration experienced by people from around the globe and across the centuries.
Featuring the world-premiere of Huwiyati Muhajer/Citizens of Horizons by Palestinian Jordanian artist and composer Shireen Abu-Khader, alongside works by Ériks Ešenvalds, Bob Chilcott, Antonín Dvořák and Aotearoa composers Rosa Elliott and Takerei Komene, Horizons will leave no heart untouched, no soul unstirred.
Voices New Zealand with
Nathaniel Lees – narrator
Jeremy Fitzsimons - Percussion
Karen Grylls, CMNZ – Conductor and Artistic Director
Jacqueline Coats - Stage Director and Script
This season is supported by:
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Programme Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (arr. Robert Wiremu) | Requiem in D minor K 626
About composer Robert Wīremu:
As an occasional composer, Robert has been relatively prolific in output. A student of the late Jack Body, the late David Farquhar, and the very active Ross Harris, Robert was a singer (studying with Emily Mair) specialising in new and old music. It’s not surprising then that he would focus his writing on work featuring the voice. He’s also strongly influenced by Māori sounds and perspectives, which is evident in his output.
You may know that our 25th birthday is coming up, and we’re going to celebrate in style by going on this national tour with Chamber Music New Zealand.
From Bach to today! In a daring reimagining of early music, join Voices New Zealand as they take an emotional journey through song. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, with surprising arrangements of traditional choral works in beautiful settings.
Conductor and Music Director Karen Grylls is excited to bring this new show to Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch: "'Der Weg' by Leonie Holmes, alongside Bach’s 'Komm, Jesu, komm', newly commissioned for this occasion, will be a real highlight of the concert."
Directed by renowned Opera director Jacqueline Coats, the journey of the concert will be guided by puppetry from Little Dog Barking Theatre Company, a first for a Voices New Zealand concert.
Music Director Karen Grylls
Director Jacqui Coats
Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir
Contributing artists
Cello James Bush
Marimba Eric Renick
Puppetry Kenny King
Repertoire
O ves Omnes Victoria
Es ist ein Ros Praetorius
Es ist ein Ros Sandström
Mass in B Minor (Crucifixus) Johann Sebastian Bach
Komm Jesu Komm Johann Sebastian Bach
Der Weg Leonie Holmes (World premiere 26 May)
Hear My Prayer Purcell
My Prayer Chilcott
When the Violin Sings Reena Esmail
Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring Johann Sebastian Bach
O lux beata Trinitas William Byrd
O lux beata Trinitas Andrej Makor
Ecce Quomodo Moritur Justus Jacobus Gallus Handl. Bob Thiele and David Weiss, restructured by Robert Wiremu
This tour is supported by:
Mahler Symphony No. 3 in D Minor
What better way to kick off Gemma New’s first full year as NZSO Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor than with one of the greatest symphonies of all time? Mahler’s Third Symphony is a colossal monument in the orchestral repertoire, requiring a giant orchestra, singers from Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, a children’s choir, and a mezzo-soprano soloist. In this work, Mahler interrogates and portrays gorgeous life itself – summer, nature, humanity, heaven and love.
Renowned mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke returns to our shores to perform in this masterful work. Described as being “equal parts poise, radiance, and elegant directness” (Opera News), she gained particular acclaim for originating the female lead in John Adams’ opera Doctor Atomic. Comfortable singing everything from Mozart to Missy Mazzoli, she has made a specialty of gilding Mahlerian repertoire with her “bewitchingly lustrous” sound (New Zealand Herald).
Conductor Giordano Bellincampi
Soprano Kirstin Sharpin
Mezzo-soprano Sally-Anne Russell
Tenor Manase Latu
Bass-baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes
Combined choir from:
Voices New Zealand
New Zealand Youth Choir
New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir
The Graduate Choir New Zealand
Director Karen Grylls
Programme:
Beethoven Symphony No.8
Beethoven Symphony No.9
Beethoven’s genial Eighth Symphony is the work of an unrivalled artist revealing himself as a fellow human, laughing and joking like the rest of us. And our universal humanity is the explicit concern of his next symphony, but it’s on an entirely different scale.
For the heaven-storming Ninth, the orchestra alone wasn’t enough: voices were necessary for Beethoven’s ecstatic vision. ‘All men shall become brothers,’ they sing. ‘I embrace you, O you millions – this kiss is for all the world!’
With this concert, the APO finally completes its much-anticipated symphony cycle. Through the music, with its vast, elemental force, Beethoven speaks to us across the centuries and into infinity.
Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra is New Zealand’s full-time professional Metropolitan orchestra, serving the country’s largest and most vibrant city with a comprehensive programme of concerts and education and outreach activities.
Presented in association with ICBC
In a landmark moment for choral music in Aotearoa New Zealand, Grammy Award winning composer and conductor Eric Whitacre takes the stage in Auckland for on Open Rehearsal with the New Zealand Youth Choir.
Eric Whitacre’s works are programmed worldwide and his ground-breaking Virtual Choirs have united singers from more than 145 countries over the last decade. A graduate of Juilliard School of Music, Eric completed his second term as Artist in Residence with the Los Angeles Master Chorale in 2020 having served five years as Composer in Residence at the University of Cambridge. In 2021, Eric was named a Yamaha Artist.
In this 1-hour long rehearsal, Eric will work with and conduct the NZ Secondary Students' Choir & NZ Youth Choir on a selection of his own works that the choirs will be performing that night at the gala concert.
The 5 pieces the NZ Secondary Students' Choir are planning to work on are:
The 7 pieces the NZ Youth Choir are planning to work on are:
1. - 5. The City and the Sea
6. A Boy and a Girl
7. Lux Aurumque
Keeping everyone safe
If you have any specific questions around our commitment to keep our choir and audience safe, feel free to email choirs@choirsnz.co.nz
