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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)