Convenor's Chain - AICSAPedia

In 1970, during Melbourne IV, the Intervarsity Choral Festival movement celebrated its twenty-first birthday. Present as honoured guests were IV’s ‘Founding Parents’, Peggy and Colin Russell-Jones. They had been, before they were married, and in their roles as SUMS Secretary and SUMS President respectively, among the organisers of the first festival in 1950. At the 1970 festival, they presented the then ‘IV Father’ Andrew Bunting of MUCS with a Convenor’s Chain and suggested that each subsequent Convenor add another link. The tradition of including a ‘quotable quote’, sometimes taken from the text of one of the works performed at the festival, was begun by Andrew Penman two years later. Below is a complete transcription of the Convenor’s Chain. By 1995, the chain had become so long that a new top-piece was added inscribed with the words ‘IVCF CONVENORS’, and new panels can now be added down beside the old links.

Year	City	Convenor	Society	Inscription	Comments
1970	Melbourne	Andrew Bunting	MUCS	IVCF Festival Father	The reverse is inscribed “From the Founding Parents Peggy and Colin Russell-Jones, Sydney 1950”
1971	Canberra	Brian Hingerty	SCUNA	[no inscription]
1972	Brisbane	Andrew Penman	QUMS	Organise, organise
1973	Perth	Timothy Mason	PUCS	Piano subito
1974	Adelaide	Matthew Mitchell	AUCS	Esiona	Misspelling of “Eis Aiona”, the opening words of Orff’s Catulli Carmina
1975	Sydney	David Goodwin	UNCS	Cecil B. de G.
1976	Hobart	Christopher Thomas	TUMS	Mit clusters
1977	Canberra	Rik Allen	SCUNA	He slumbers not, nor sleeps	From Mendelssohn’s Elijah
1978	Melbourne	Phil O’Byrne	MUCS	Pastime with good company	Title of an often-sung Pub Song attributed to Henry VIII
1979	Brisbane	Gary Price	QUMS	Did I do that?
1980	Perth	Rob Kay	PUCS	How kind of you to let me come	Quotation from Pygmalion/My Fair Lady. Kay's name is engraved on a small key.
1981	Adelaide	Deb Tranter	FUCS	Lamaragashu	From Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms
1982	Sydney	Ann Stephens	SUMS	One meeting puhleeze!
1983	Melbourne	Libby Nottle	MonUCS	Who wants a casting vote or two?
1984	Perth	Serena Kay	PUCS	Ease in Frogs	Direction (in conductor’s score) to tape operator during Fanshawe’s African Sanctus
1985	Hobart	Chris McDermott	TUMS	Selig Sind	From one of Schütz’s funderal motets
1986	Brisbane	Noel Wilmott	QUMS	Oh, the wild joys of living!
1987	Adelaide	Ali Jonas	FUCS	Sit down, you’re rocking the boat!	Song by same name from Lerner and Lowe’s Guys and Dolls
1988	Sydney	Stephen Schafer	SUMS	The straight and the narrow, the sad and the gay	From Martin and Peter Wesley-Smith’s Songs of Australia
1989	Canberra	40th IV Committee	SCUNA	We did it with a k	There was no convenor, the festival being run by a "Kollective"
1990	Perth	Geoffrey Garside	PUCS	Behold in me a sofa, rest on me	From Holst’s Hymn of Jesus, although the original text has the word couch, not sofa.
1991	Melbourne	Jacqui Harrison	MonUCS	Make love, not war	This IV was known as the ‘Summer of Love’ and began on the day after the commencement of the Gulf War
1992	Hobart	Chris McDermott	TUMS	Et in Arcadia ego	Losely translated as “I am in Paradise”, a thought expressed in Brideshead Revisited, the theme of the festival
1993	Brisbane	Noel Wilmott	QUMS	What the hey, make it so!
1994	Adelaide	Catherine Campbell	FUCS	Low-born clods of brute earth–is not the night restless for them?	First line from Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius; second line from John Adams’s Death of Klinghoffer.
1995	Sydney	Craig Miller	SUMS	To all that went down doing their duty: Geschwinde!	First part from Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony; last word from Beethoven’s Meersstille und Glückliche Fahrt.
1996	Canberra	Liz Keogh	SCUNA	Ain’t got time to die	Line from an often-sung spiritual by Hall Johnson
1997	Perth	Sarah Penn	PUCS	Nothing succeeds like success
1998	Melbourne	Andrew Wailes	MUCS	Raise your voice, O mighty throng! Alleluia!	Line from Timothy Sexton’s An Australian Alleluia
1999	Hobart	Antony Logan	TUMS
2000	Brisbane	Michael Scott	QUMS
2001	Adelaide
2002	Sydney	Jon Hogan-Doran	SUMS
2003	Canberra	Luke Murtagh	SCUNA
2004	Perth	Joel Mendelson	PUCS
2005	Melbourne	Sarah Chan	MonMUCS,ROCS	I will fear no Evil: Thy Rod & thy Staff comfort me
2006	Adelaide	Ange Randall	AUCS
2007	Brisbane	Horst Joachim Schirra	QUMS
2008	Sydney
2009	Hobart

AICSAPedia: Convenor's Chain (last edited 2020-02-09 10:05:44 by cpe-60-224-22-30)