News
Click on these headings to go to the article:
Musica Sacra has commissioned new settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis
With the generous assistance of the Donny Charitable Trust, Musica Sacra has commissioned two new settings of the Evening canticles (Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis) from composer
Dr John Wells.
English-born John Wells is a graduate of Cambridge University where he was organ scholar at King's College Chapel under David Willcocks. He received his organ doctorate with high distinction from Indiana University after studies with Dr Oswald Ragatz. He is well-known to New Zealand audiences as a concert performer, composer, recording artist and teacher. Tours have taken him to Australia, England, Poland, Germany, France and North America; in 2008 he will visit the UK and Germany again.
Dr Wells is Organist to the University of Auckland and Visiting Artist-Tutor at the School of Music; he is also Auckland City Organist and has played a key role in the successful campaign to rebuild the Town Hall organ. He is Musica Sacra's Organist. He is a past-President of the New Zealand Association of Organists which elected him an honorary Fellow in 2002 for his services to organ music in New Zealand. He has made seven CDs including the very first New Zealand organ CD in 1989, and has recorded Bach's entire Well-Tempered Clavier on the organ.
He is much in demand as a composer; recent commissions include compositions for an organ tuned in meantone and the completion, after six years, of The Well-Tempered Piano, 30 preludes and fugues in all the keys. His compositions have used Maori and Tongan influences.
The Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis form the backbone of every Choral Evensong. These texts have inspired many great musical settings from hundreds of composers over the centuries: and yet there have been very few settings by New Zealand composers. These two new settings from Dr Wells will be a very significant and important addition to the repertoire of New Zealand choral music.
The Musica Sacra Canticles (Set One) will receive their premiere performance at Choral Evensong on Sunday 29 June at 5:00pm at St Matthew-in-the-City. They will be performed again at Choral Evensong in ChristChurch Cathedral, Christchurch on Sunday 26 October at 5.30pm. A complex and imposing work, this setting features a virtuoso organ part. Set Two will be forthcoming later in 2008: this will be a setting for unaccompanied double choir.
Dr Wells writes:
It has been a great privilege to write this, the first of two settings, commissioned by the Musica Sacra Trust with funding from the Donny Charitable Trust and dedicated to the Choir’s musical director, Dr Indra Hughes. The setting is scored for SAATBB voices and organ.
The Magnificat is often portrayed, quite reasonably, as a joyful song. A few settings, such as Howells’ Collegium Regale, hint at a deeper and richer vein within the context. After all, Mary had had an experience that defies full understanding. And there was a darker side to the Nativity, too: some commentators have pointed out that “no room at the inn” reflected Joseph’s family rejecting the couple because of what was undoubtedly the scandal of an illegitimate pregnancy. This setting is therefore unequivocally serious yet with an expansive range of colour, drama and tension.
Simeon’s song, of course, is quite different. Near the end of his life, he was finally to see the baby, the Gentiles’ revelation and the Jews’ glory. Maybe, with a degree of prescience, he could sense dark days ahead. The opening of the music is elegiac but rises to triumph at the end of his song. The Gloria picks up on the positive mood, and ends serenely.
To visit Dr Wells' web site, click here.
The Choir records for a film score
May 2008
Musica Sacra has recorded two short contributions to the score of the upcoming movie Dean Spanley, "a surreal Edwardian comedic tale of canine reincarnation that explores the relationship between master and dog and father and son", directed by New Zealander Toa Fraser and starrting Peter O'Toole, Sam Neill, Bryan Brown and Jeremy Northam. The musical score has been composed by Don McGlashan. The movie is set in England in 1905 and has been filmed in Norfolk, Cambridgshire and in New Zealand. In two scenes, the cathedral choir can be heard rehearsing in the distance: Musica Sacra has provided this music with works by William Byrd and William Boyce. Dean Spanley is due for worlwide release later in 2008.
The Armed Man comes to Auckland
click image to enlarge
Musica Sacra's Deputy Conductor Iain Tetley will be conducting the Auckland premiere of Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace in the Great Hall of the Auckland Town Hall on Saturday 7 June at 7:30pm. Invited by the South Auckland Choral Society to conduct this recent large scale work, Iain has added two other choirs, the Franklin Community Choir and his Waiheke Island choir Sing Waiheke, to form a massed choir of about 150 voices which will be accompanied by the St Matthew's Chamber Orchestra, enlarged specially for the occasion to around 60 players. The eight soloists required for the work include Pepe Becker, Margo Knightbridge, Dmitry Rusakov and Edward Scorgie, and the first half of the concert will feature the Fauré Requiem, rarely performed on this scale, also accompanied by the orchestra with Dr Indra Hughes playing the organ part. Reserved tickets are $45 from THE EDGE on
0800 289 842 or on their website www.the-edge.co.nz. A group concession is available and a service fee applies.
Musica Sacra announces its programme for its 2008 Tenth Anniversary season
Musica Sacra was founded in 1998 and so 2008 is the choir's tenth anniversary season. We have assembled a programme of magnificent music that celebrates some of the works we have performed in our first ten years, as well as introducing some masterpieces that we perform for the first time.
Our regular programme of Choral Evensong on the last Sunday of each month will continue at St Matthew-in-the-City, starting on Sunday 24 February. Many of these Services will feature the Donald Barriball Memorial Chamber Organ.
On Good Friday, 21 March, Musica Sacra will perform Dietrich Buxtehude's masterpiece
Membra Jesu Nostri (The Limbs of our Lord Jesus). Written in 1680, this is a cycle of seven short cantatas, each of which is dedicated to a contemplation of a different part of Christ's crucified body:
feet, knees, hands, side, chest, heart, and head. The choir will be joined by a small ensemble of expert baroque instrumental players and vocal soloists. In 2007, the choir's Good Friday presentation was given twice, at 3:30pm and 8:00pm, and both performances were attended by full houses: this pattern will be repeated this year.
In June, (15 or 22 June, date and venue to be confirmed), the choir will sing two of the greatest masterpieces of the choral repertoire: Palestrina's glorious Missa Papae Marcelli and Sir Hubert Parry's complete Six Songs of Farewell.
The choir's August concert (16 August) contrasts some modern repertoire (Herbert Howells' Requiem and American composer Eric Whitacre's powefully moving When David Heard) with one of the ultimate masterpieces of the Renaissance, Victoria's 1605 Requiem.
At Labour Weekend in October, the choir makes its first visit 'overseas' to the South Island, with a trip to Christchurch. On Sunday 26 October, Musica Sacra will sing both the Choral Eucharist and Choral Evensong in Christchurch Cathedral; and at 2:30pm on the same day the choir will join forces with Christchurch's Jubilate Singers (conductor Grant Hutchinson) for a joint concert in the cathedral, including Fauré's Requiem.
Musica Sacra was founded on 14 November 1998 and so we celebrate the significant milestone of ten years with a major orchestral concert, almost ten years to the day, on Saturday 15 November at Holy Trinity Cathedral, with a superb programme of music by Handel. Both the words and music of Handel's Ode for Saint Cecilia celebrate the power of music, and there can surely be no more appropriate way to mark this special occasion. The Ode will be joined by Handel's Coronation Anthem Let thy hand be strengthened and the colourful and dramatic Chandos Anthem No 11, Let God arise, with its vivid word-painting and excitingly vigorous music, as well as a Handel Organ Concerto to be played by conductor Dr Indra Hughes.
Last year's Christmas Concert at St Patrick's Cathedral was attended by a very large standing-room-only audience, and we expect that that will be true again at our 2008 Christmas Concert on Saturday 20 December.
We look forward to welcoming you during this important anniversary year for Musica Sacra, and promise you a year of superb music.
Conductor elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
September 2007
Indra Hughes is pleased to announce that he has been elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
The Society was founded in 1754 by William Shipley, a painter and social activist. He brought together a group of individuals to propose a manifesto for the Society - "To embolden enterprise, enlarge science, refine arts, improve our manufactures and extend our commerce". The first meeting of the RSA was held in London on 10th April 1754. The RSA today is an independent, non-aligned, multi-disciplinary registered charity. There are over 20,000 Fellows from all walks of life, but they have in common a record of achievement and an ability to make a difference. Past Fellows include Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Johnson, Michael Faraday, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Dickens, Robert Stephenson, Adam Smith and Karl Marx. The Current Fellowship is just as rich and diverse, and includes Nelson Mandela, Professor Stephen Hawking, Cherie Blair, Anita Roddick (Body Shop founder), and Dame Elizabeth Murdoch.
Click here to visit the RSA web site.
›› Click here to go to the Archive of older news items
|
