Voices Ensembles is a new project offering an exciting opportunity for professional singers in Aotearoa New Zealand to work and perform at a high artistic level. Choirs Aotearoa has received funding from Creative New Zealand to run a pilot scheme that creates small vocal ensembles of Voices NZ singers. The pilot is artistically led by Karen Grylls and Christopher Bruerton (current member of The King’s Singers) and will run from March to October 2021.

Auditions will be held 19 and 26 February.

Check out this additional information and how to apply.

A few weeks out from our brand new reimagining of early music When Light Breaks, we take a look at one person bringing the story to life. We’re excited to be working with Director Jacqueline Coats who has many feathers in her cap. She has worked as a director and an assistant director for the NZ International Festival of the Arts, NZ Opera, Victorian Opera in Melbourne, CubaDupa in Wellington and many more. She has won accolades from the NZ Fringe and the Wellington Theatre Awards, and in 2014 was ‘Director of the Year’ at the Dunedin Theatre Awards for her premiere of Anthony Richie’s This Other Eden.

Jacqueline has a passion for theatre and opera for young people. She has worked as an actor, a music director and a stage director for Capital E National Theatre for Children, most recently directing their touring production of Songs of the Sea. Jacqueline’s theatre credits include the original touring productions of Lines from the Nile and Home; a promenade production of Martin Sherman’s Bent; and co-directing two shows for Wellington Summer Shakespeare. She directed Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona for Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School at the end of 2018.

Jacqueline is not only directing When Light Breaks, but she has crafted the journey of the show, inspired by the quote “we are all broken, that’s how the light gets in.” The concert is set around the ritual of grief, moving through five stages – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, moving from darkness to light over the course of the performance.

The journey of the concert will be guided by puppetry from Little Dog Barking Theatre Company, a first for a Voices New Zealand concert.

We are head over heels with opera, wide eyed for Monteverdi and smitten for Britten. With the alert levels changing for the better, we can confirm that VOICES LOVE OPERA is coming to your stages in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington mid-October. Some of New Zealand’s best singers are debuting a new show that explores both the triumphs and the heartbreaks of love.

Read more here

Composing for a large choir and a maximum of three instruments – that’s the challenge Choirs Aotearoa NZ is issuing to some adventurous Kiwi composers.

It’s a perfect time for composers to try something new.   Concert plans are in disarray, thanks to the pandemic.  And they’re likely to continue to face disruptions for the foreseeable future.

This is New Zealand’s first national competition specifically for choral song-writing – Compose Aotearoa.

Read more on RNZ

Compose Aotearoa! is a new national initiative to stimulate the creation of new and diverse New Zealand music for choirs. Designed as an annual competition facilitated by the national body managing our three national choirs, Choirs Aotearoa New Zealand Trust, Compose Aotearoa! will be a rewarding pathway for young as well as established composers to produce new work.

For over four decades our national choirs have benefitted from and contributed to the creation of new New Zealand choral works. With this competition we aim to encourage the development of choral writing in New Zealand and provide a high quality performance opportunity for these works. We invite submissions for choral works suitable for performance by any one of NZ Secondary Students’ Choir, NZ Youth Choir or VOICES New Zealand.

Find out more on the Choirs Aotearoa NZ website here.

New conducting roles for New Zealand’s premier choir

The next step in nurturing conductor talent

Choirs Aotearoa NZ is delighted to announce the establishment of four new Associate Conductors of premier national chamber choir Voices New Zealand, Auckland-based Nicholas Forbes, Fiona Wilson, Rowan Johnston, and Wellington-based Isaac Stone. Associate Conductors will engage in our regional development activities and will also support the Artistic Director in various leadership and musical roles in rehearsal, and on the concert platform.

Artistic Director Karen Grylls says these four have contributed significantly during their time so far with the choir, and hopes this role will create opportunities for their development as future conductors on the professional stage.

Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir made its debut at the 1998 New Zealand International Arts Festival and later that year won awards at the Tolosa International Choral Competition in Spain. With its distinct New Zealand sound, Voices NZ regularly performs at Arts Festivals around the country, collaborates with orchestras, taonga puoro and other artists across creative genres. Many of the singers, like Isaac Stone, are alumni of the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir and New Zealand Youth Choir.

Isaac will be the first of the four Associate Conductors in action later this month, he will be leading a Voices NZ ensemble of six singers at ‘Classical on Cuba’ from CubaDupa, an upcoming two day music festival. The Voices NZ ensemble ‘Six on Cuba’ are performing at various bars and an art gallery on 27 and 28 June.

More about the Associate Conductors:

Fiona Wilson shared that “being a member of Voices NZ has deeply informed and influenced my musical journey as a singer and conductor.” Fiona has been a member of Voices NZ Chamber Choir since 2006 and has previously sung with NZ Youth Choir, London’s BBC Symphony Chorus, Auckland Chamber Choir and Dorian Choir. Fiona is currently the Director of Cantare, the premier girls’ choir at Westlake Girls High School in Auckland, and is the Head of Music. “The opportunity to work with Karen, who first sparked my love of choral music, is a significant and personal honour”.

Originally from Christchurch, Nicholas is a tutor and postgraduate student at the University of Auckland, studying conducting. He is the Musical Director of Harbour Voices and GALS choirs and currently, the acting Director of Music at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Auckland. New Associate Conductor Nicholas Forbes shared that “to work with a choir of Voices NZ’s stature, under the guidance of Dr. Grylls, is a great privilege.”

Rowan Johnston was a member of the NZ Youth Choir from 1993, and has been part of Voices NZ since 1999. Rowan agreed that it was a “huge privilege” to be asked by Dr Grylls, who he described as a “taonga in the NZ choral scene”, and is excited to work with the whole musical team. Based in Auckland, Rowan conducts the acclaimed school choir, Choralation and is Director of Choirs at Holy Trinity Cathedral Auckland.

Isaac Stone teaches classroom music, classical singing and leads the choral programme at Tawa College, including the chamber choir Blue Notes which recently received a Gold Award at the NZCF Big Sing Finale. He is the founding musical director of the innovative Wellington-based choir Supertonic and sings in a number of choirs in Wellington, including Tudor Consort and Inspirare. Isaac has said “It’s an absolute privilege to be asked by Karen to take on this role, and I’m thrilled to be able to contribute the skills and knowledge I have acquired back into this incredible organisation.”

More about Voices NZ:

Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir made its debut at the 1998 New Zealand International Arts Festival and later that year won awards at the Tolosa International Choral Competition in Spain. With its distinct New Zealand sound, performing music from Aotearoa New Zealand and infusing the qualities of its pacific origins into the classic choral repertoire, Voices NZ regularly performs at Arts Festivals around the country, collaborates with orchestras, Chamber Music New Zealand, taonga puoro and other artists across creative genres. As a nationally selected choir, Voices NZ runs nationwide auditions annually.

Classical on Cuba will take place on the 27, 28 June 2020, Wellington. Tickets are available from this website: https://www.cubadupa.co.nz/classicaloncuba

For enquiries or more information, contact Arne Herrmann on 0272761751 or email ceo@choirsnz.co.nz

www.voicesnz.com

Today’s announcement by the government to limit indoor events to 100 people means that most of our activities will be impacted. These restrictions will most certainly be in place during April when we had planned several concerts. Some of these concerts have already been cancelled and more cancellations will follow. This is disappointing news for singers and audiences alike and will affect many professional artists, contractors, suppliers and their whānau. But these are unprecedented circumstances and we are fully committed to keep our people safe and healthy.

Find out more here…

Standing on Marine Parade before this concert, a calm green/blue sea, gulls and a dark-lined horizon, I wondered how on earth a wholeness could be created out of the great risotto of influences identified in the programme notes. From sea serpents, whales, Mother Theresa, Māori, Finnish, Indonesian cultures, waka made of human bones, and so much more.

Seated in a full-to-busting MTG, I was carried along in the story by the grand expansive, though strangely intimate, backdrop videos of the oceans. The horizon calling the audience out onto the glimmering sea surface, while being bathed in the great variety of sound created by the human voice.

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