The Westlake Choirs have had a busy start to the year with rehearsals, workshops and camps. Nota Bella (Junior Choir), Cigno Voce (Senior Choir) and Choralation (Mixed Choir) have all enjoyed camp weekends at Peter Snell Youth Village on the sunny Whangaparaoa coast. Music camps are an annual highlight and provide an opportunity for students to learn their music for the year, make new friends, get to know their directors and bond together as a team. The choir leaders help by running sectional rehearsals and organise fun activities for everyone to enjoy and build on the ‘whānau’ values that our choirs embody. Preparations are well underway for The Big Sing competition which is the largest singing festival in the southern hemisphere, with over 10,000 secondary school students participating around New Zealand.
Another recent highlight for the WGHS choral singers was participating in a masterclass with the professional ensemble ‘Gesualdo Six’ who are touring from the United Kingdom. Gesualdo Six are a male sextet who specialise in early music from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. During the masterclass, they taught our 130 students a beautiful piece by Palestrina. Many of the students went to their public concert the following night, which was held in the beautiful acoustic of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell. It was a fantastic experience to meet and sing with a professional ensemble and be immersed in a new sound world of English choral tradition.
Coming up – our WGHS Cygnet Choir (a blend of Nota Bella, Cigno Voce and Cantare singers) will be performing Mahler’s Third Symphony, with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra on April 1st at the Auckland Town Hall. This is a great honour for our students to be singing with our national orchestral and the kiwi-born, now international conductor, Gemma New. A limited number of tickets are still available on this website: https://www.nzso.co.nz/the-nzso/events-tickets/events/mahler-3
