PHOTO
Matariki Concert
St Patrick’s Basilica
Friday, July 14
Dunedin RSA Choir presented a concert for a large audience yesterday in St Patrick’s Basilica, South Dunedin.
The choral music-making conducted by musical director Karen Knudson came straight from the hearts of 40 gentlemen in smart crimson coats.
The accompanist was Mark Wigglesworth and the programme was compered by Kevin Tansley.
The choir opened with Sing We Now the Praise, written in 1925 by Otago musical legend Victor Galway, followed by three solos from the choir’s scholar Dominic Edmond, studying classical voice at University of Otago.
His third solo, Something’s Coming, by Bernstein, showed excellent delivery and contemporary flair, and was better suited technically than his French and Italian repertoire.
An old favourite with this choir The Rose, showed great confidence and balanced harmony. New repertoire was a Knudson arrangement of A Te Tarakihi, and the well-known In the Bleak Midwinter was sung in a little-known setting by Cheryl Camm.
Wigglesworth, who travels to Scotland soon for further studies, conducted the choir for So Deep is the Night, followed by his own arrangement of Elton John’s Candle in the Wind.
Pianist Cameron Monteath excelled with works by Liszt and Kapustin, and Boudewijn Keenan performed a very polished unaccompanied Bach Suite for cello, followed by the second movement of Brahms D Minor Cello Sonata, accompanied by Wigglesworth.
Monteath and Keenan later performed Yellow by Coldplay and Photograph by Cody Fry, with cello lyricism in the latter being enhanced by the polished concrete floor surface of the basilica.
Cello also added obbligato and depth of tone to Knudson’s choral arrangement of Paint It, Black.
The concert ended with the Gaelic Blessing Deep Peace.
Review by Elizabeth Bouman