Conducted by choir director David Burchell, and featuring vocal and instrumental soloists, the Applaud! Women in Music concert will be held this Saturday, May 29, from 7.30pm at Knox Church.
The concert comes in the midst of a busy period of Beethoven for the choir, which appeared in the Beethoven’s Big Bash show in April, and will step on stage with the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra to perform Beethoven’s full Symphony No.9, Ode to Joy in June.
Burchell selected the Applaud! programme of women’s music, featuring composers from the 17th to the 21st centuries, including Marianna Martines (Austria), Barbara Strozzi (Venice), Florence Price (US), Betty Jackson King (US), Cecile Chaminade (France), Tamsin Jones (UK), Josephine Lang (Germany), Amy Beach (US), Felicia Edgecombe (New Zealand), and Rosephanye Powell (US).
"Women’s music has risen to prominence in music scholarship in recent years, and about time too," Burchell said.
"It is surprising how many women composers are emerging, who had been almost totally unknown, in this women’s music renaissance."
The choir will be joined by Dunedin singers Olivia Pike (soprano), Tessa Romano (mezzo-soprano) and Benjamin Madden (tenor), as soloists in many of the works.
Pianist Sandra Crawshaw will accompany the performance, along with musicians on flute, oboe, clarinet, and organ.
Burchell is pleased to be able to include sections of Shaky Places, by Felicia Edgecombe — the full work includes 14 settings of New Zealand poems. The choir will sing seven.
"This is a quintessential New Zealand work, with a lovely setting of poems on icons such as the tuatara, and also serious topics like the Christchurch earthquakes and Erebus," Burchell said.
The year will continue to be busy for City Choir Dunedin, which will work towards performances of Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle on October 9, and Handel’s Messiah on December 7.
The choir would be pleased to welcome new singers for these concerts, Burchell said.
