Regional singers and choral lovers can join the choir and partake in rehearsals, coachings and guidance from directors Dr Karen Grylls and Elise Bradley leading up to a mass choir performance on Easter Monday 21 April.   

Featured songs include The Hallelujah Chorus, O Fortuna, and Ode to Joy. Supported by members of the National Youth Choir and Lexus Song Quest Prizewinners, this massed choir will perform alongside a live orchestra at the Queenstown Memorial Centre.   

Music will be provided for the Rejoice! Choir members and the commitment to participate is:   

Tuesday 15 7:00 – 9:30pm rehearsal at Te Atamira

Thursday 17 April 7:00 – 9:30pm rehearsal at Queenstown Memorial Centre

Easter Monday 21 April 11:30am – 1:00pm dress rehearsal at Queenstown Memorial Centre for 2:00 concert (concert finishes at 4:30)    

Every performer will receive a complimentary ticket to their concert and 50% off all other festival tickets!   

Registration is required and there is a modest participation fee of $25. 

Open String Class with Ioana Cristina Goicea and Julian Smiles – An intimate and informal setting for string students and their teachers. 

 

After winning the 2017 Michael Hill Int’l Violin Competition, Ioana Cristina has made her home in Vienna where she is a professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts as well as maintaining a busy solo career.  Cellist Julian Smiles has occupied some of the most prestigious chamber music and orchestral leadership positions in Australian including Head of Strings at the Sydney Conservatorium. 

 

Thursday 17 April  5:30 – 7pm  at Te Atamira

Legendary choral educators Karen and Elise will work with singers in an informal setting to develop blending, voicing, articulation and other necessities for singing in a choir.   

 

Dr Karen Grylls is Artistic Director of Choirs Aotearoa and led the NZ Youth Choir to win the ‘Choir of the World’ in 1992.  Elise Bradley, returned to New Zealand from an illustrious 14 ½ year as the Artistic Director of the Toronto Youth Choir and is the co-founder, along with Karen, of New Zealand’s Choral Academy. 

 

Wednesday 16 April 5:30pm – 7:30pm at Te Atamira.

Turn Up The Music is a charitable trust that aims to improve the lives of the Wakatipu Basin Community by providing quality music teaching, music making, performance opportunities and events.

Several students of Turn Up The Music will begin our Next Gen 1 performance, showcasing the young local talent of their community music programme.

The prodigious abilities of New Zealand’s leading emerging artists are then on display with intimate recitals that cover the gamut from Baroque to contemporary repertoire and finishing with a delicious chamber quartet from Romantic era composer Walter Rabl performed by Festival Artists.  

Saturday 19 April 3:00pm – 5:30pm at Queenstown Memorial Centre

Open Piano Class with Stephen De Pledge and Bernadette Harvey. An intimate and informal setting for piano students and their teachers to learn alongside festival artists.

 

Stephen and Bernadette are not only internationally-renowned soloists and collaborating pianists, they are also sought-after piano teachers and on faculty at the University of Auckland and the Sydney Conservatorium.   

Tuesday 15 April  5:30 – 7:30pm at Te Atamira

Kinga Krupa is a classical piano teacher helping students and adults discover the beauty of playing and learning music. Formed in 2018, their students have the opportunity to perform in two yearly performances while learning composers’ biographies.

 

Next Gen 2 will begin with performances that demonstrate the accomplishments of pupils of Queenstown-based piano teacher Kinga Krupa. Complement the excitement and virtuosity demanded of solo emerging artists, this concert traverses Baroque, classical, and contemporary musical styles. Don’t miss the chance to hear Bach’s familiar Brandenberg Third Concerto performed by string members of Central Otago Community Orchestra.