High school choir wows Memorial Hall audience

June 11th, 2012
[by David Armstrong]

The Motueka High School choir nearly stole the show at yesterday's Nelson Male Voice Choir concert, presenting the three items that gained them a commendation at the Big Sing regional final in Blenheim last week.

The 18-voice choir, named "Suono Bellissimo", gained a genuine, long ovation after singing their set of songs with such quality and assuredness that people in the audience of nearly 200 were still talking about it an hour later as they left.

Under the direction and training of dedicated music teacher Hilary Sinclair, the choir has practised three times a week since the start of the year to make huge strides in the quality and accuracy of their work, acting under the principle that 'good enough' was not in fact good enough.

Last Wednesday the choir competed for the first time in the Big Sing's Top of the South competitions, which ended in an evening concert for all the nine choirs. In the afternoon contest they were one of only three choirs which received Commended status, following one which was Highly Commended.

Suono Bellissimo members come from all levels at the high school, including three International students. They performed "Sing Now", "All people that on earth do dwell" and the groovy "Ain't misbehavin'". A feature was the accompaniment of gifted student pianist Louis Lucas-Perry.

The Big Sing is run by the New Zealand Choral Federation, which requires choirs to sing three selections ranging from contemporary New Zealand compositions to traditional folk and everything in between.

The high school choir led off the second half of a varied programme by the Nelson Male Voice choir under the direction of Motueka's Andrea Hamilton. They gave their own harmonic arrangements of a range of hit songs from the mid- to late-20th century, including tunes by Abba, the Bee Gees, Queen, Billy Joel and many others.

Guest artist flautist Sarah Stack and choir soloists John Masters, Robin Ord and Andrew Palmer provided their own highlight performances. Another star of the day was the recently renovated Memorial Hall performance infrastructure, for which project leader Mark Wentworth was praised.

The Motueka High School choir performing yesterday while the
Nelson Male Voice Choir watch seated on stage behind them.
[Photo by Judy Thorp]

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