My singing history

I first started singing in choirs at school - first in primary school, despite the vicious music teacher (whom I might write about some other time), then at high school. At high school I was also school pianist and one year conducted my house, and a smaller house choir, in the annual choral competition (I think we won ...?).

I think it was in my final year that one of my teachers, BM, suggested I should join the Melbourne Chorale, one of the major large choirs in town. I did so the next year (I think) and sang with the choir from 1969 to 1975. Over this period we performed a great variety of works and I find that nowadays when I revisit one of these works it's like revisiting an old friend. More than any works I've learnt more recently these early pieces have stuck like glue in my brain and with many of them I could sing them with only the slightest glance at the music.

Some of the works we performed back then:

Mozart: Mass in C minor - with the MSO under Gary Bertini
Haydn: 'Harmoniemesse' - MSO under Peter Eros(?)
Franck: Psyche - MSO under van Otterloo That was an interesting experience.
Mozart: Requiem - MSO and ?
Ramirez: Misa criolla
Schütz: Musikalische Exequien - what a fabulous piece; would love to do it again.
Bruckner: Motets: Ave Maria, Christus factus est, Virga Jesse, Locus iste
Dvořák: Czech folk songs for male voices (the women did the blissful Brahms songs for women's voices, two horns and harp).
Sculthorpe: Choruses from Rites of passage - recording.
Poulenc: Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël 

[Original: 2011]