The concert — with the Te Atamira arts and cultural centre as the immediate backdrop — is the brainchild of local impresario and singing teacher Margaret O’Hanlon, who’s long had the idea for a sort of ‘flash choir’, but had always been tied up with the Christmas show.
She asked people to register for the choir and signed up 121 singers, who’ve trained over the past four weeks in four sections — soprano, alto, tenor and bass — under herself and fellow choir masters Alison Price, Meg Hirata and Rob Lee.
O’Hanlon estimates only 25% of the singers have sung in choirs before now.
The four well-known numbers they’ll perform are Michael Jackson’s Heal the World, to an arrangement by Hirata, Carol of the Bells, made famous by the movie Home Alone, American spiritual Amen! Go Tell it on the Mountain and Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Accompanying the latter will be the Queenstown Party Orchestra and Turn Up The Music’s junior choir.
O’Hanlon says it’s come together better than expected, "and my expectations were not low".
Speaking of Ode to Joy, she says "when you hear that many people, it’s really, really goosebump material".
She adds the performance times were chosen to allow people to still attend either the 1pm or 5pm Christmas show at the nearby Events Centre.
