The 13th Intervarsity Choral Festival: SYDNEY, 22-31 May 1962

Camp Venue: Yarramundi YMCA and Castlereagh Teachers’ College camps, Richmond
Participants: AUCS, MUCS, MonUCS, NEUCS, QUMS, SUMS, TUCS, UWAUCS

COMMITTEE

Convenor: Grantley Chaplin
Secretary: Amber Beck, Gay Wilson
ConMan: Peter Wagner
Publicity: Lindy & Peter Watts
Camp Officer: Lindy & Peter Watts
Transport: Amber Beck
Billeting: Ailsa Jernier

CONCERT

30 & 31 May, Great Hall, University of Sydney
Conductor: Gordon Spearritt, Bryan Dowling, Gordon Spearritt, Lewis Dawe, John Gordon, John Winstanley, Rex Hobcroft, John Winstanley
Soloists: Elizabeth Arnold, Richard Barnard
Program: Vivaldi Gloria (QUMS); Josquin Cueurs desolez, Plaine de dueil, Pierre de la Rue Autant en emporte le vent (MUCS); Janequin Se moys de may, Sermisy Au joli boys, Mauduit Voici le verd et beau may, Arcadelt Margot, laburez les vignes (QUMS Madrigal Group); Victoria O quam gloriosum, Wilbye Sweet Honey Sucking Bees (AUCS); John Gordon Three Fables of Aesop (SUMS); Haydn “Awake the Harp” and “Achieved is the Glorious Work” from The Creation (SUMS); James Penberthy Bedlam Hills (TUMS); Brahms “Behold, All Flesh”, “How Lovely are Thy Dwellings” and “For we Have no Abiding City” from A German Requiem, Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem (combined), Gaudeamus Igitur
Notes: Intervarsity Festival Orchestra. SUMS accompanist: Christopher Burrell. Penberthy and Gordon works were written especially for performance at the festival.
Review: G. v. R. “Inter-varsity choir concert”, Sydney Morning Herald, n.d. “In a program consisting largely of sixteenth-century music, students from Adelaide, Melbourne, Monash, New England, Queensland, Sydney, Tasmania and Western Australia universities exhibited a technical competence rarely matched by a thorough awareness of the varying styles and idioms under consideration … [QUMS] produced tone of unusual clarity, strength and balance, marred only by a certain breathiness in the altos and the usual verbal unintelligibility from all … [In the combined work,] the size and quality of the resulting tone was impressive quite by itself, but … there were passages of great musical beauty and impressiveness as well.”

• A.K. [Anthony Kendall?], “Concerts – Sydney”, Canon, vol.15, no.11 (June 1962), p.27. “The Inter-varsity Choral Festival which took place in the Great Hall … proved to be quite an event. Students … sang with considerable competence and vocal effectiveness. Each choir contributed a specially selected item after which the eight university choirs assisted by the Inter-varsity Festival Orchestra participated in an impressive performance of Dona Nobis Pacem under the impressive direction of John Winstanley. I think Vaughan Williams would have been pleased with the result.”