Singing, as well as reminiscing and laughter, will be in the air when members of University Sextets from about 50 years ago hold their first reunion this week.
The male-voice sextet has been an institution at University of Otago student-run capping shows for more than 100 years, apart from breaks during the war years.
The reunion, which will bring together members from the mid-1950s to 1963, was the brainchild of retired Dunedin dentist and dental school lecturer John Burton.
A sextet member from 1958-60, his time overlapped with that of Dunedin Mayor Peter Chin (1959, and 1962-63).
The two men have remained friends and Mr Burton said on Friday that when they began talking recently about others they had sung with, they realised 50 or more years had passed.
"We decided it was time for a reunion.
"If we left it much longer, many of the singers wouldn't still be around," Mr Burton said.
Of the 20 sextet members from the era, Mr Burton was able to track down 18.
Fourteen, including five doctors and three dentists, are attending the reunion.
Among them will be Alastair Brown (1955-60), now of Sydney, and Alastair Stokes (1960-62), both of whom went on to reach the finals of what is New Zealand's premier opera competition, the Mobil Song Quest.
Mr Burton said he had not met one of the reunion participants, and most of the others he had not seen for more than 40 years, as people's careers took them all over the world.
As well as dinners and get-togethers, the reunion singers will attend the 2009 capping show on Friday night and meet the 2009 sextet in their dressing room afterwards.
