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Clean Sweep
Tawa College the barbershop champions!

Monday August 18, 2003

With teams from around the country competing in today's secondary schools barbershop singing competitions at the Wellington Town Hall, it was to be Tawa College's year! In each of the four categories - the girls' barbershop chorus, the boys' barbershop chorus, the girls' barbershop quartet and the boys' barbershop quartet - Tawa College came first. A brilliant effort!



The above photos from tonight's barbershop concert are "hot off the press". The first is of the two national champion Tawa College quartets: Take Note (girls) and MIB (boys). They both gave stunning performances. The other is of the whole Tawa College group consisting of Maiden Tawa and Acafellas following the afternoon's session. The proud parents are also part of the photo. Charlotte Murray has done the College and the students proud with her hard work, and the students have given of their best to achieve such excellent results.

On Tuesday many of the students will be back at the Town Hall as the Acafellas (boys) and Morning Stars (mixed choir) go on to participate in this year's 'Big Sing'. This will be a demanding programme with two 10 minute recitals for each choir. Morning Stars sing in the first session at 2.15pm (Tuesday), and the Acafellas in the second session at 4.00pm. They will then sing their second recitals at 9.30am on Thursday morning. They're really looking forward to meeting with the 18 other choirs, and participating in the Massed Choir items, the workshops and the lunch time concert at Te Papa on Thursday.



Take Note
Dominion post article Tues August 19


Maiden Tawa on the night ...
... and Acafellas

More of the first-placed barbershop quartets (photos taken Monday August 25th) .....



The above report was written by Shona Murray on Monday August 18, 2003, and the following report by Malcolm Sparrow on Saturday August 23.

The National Finale Gala Concert took place last night (Friday) at the Wellington Town Hall. This involved the top 20 secondary school choirs from all over New Zealand singing one piece each. Over the past few days each choir had performed in front of a panel of three adjudicators at the Town Hall by singing two brackets of three songs and had been judged accordingly. Announcement of the results was delayed however until the end of the Friday evening concert. These 20 choirs represented the top 10% of those originally competing in various regional finals around the country, with three from Auckland, four from Christchurch, seven from Wellington, and six from other parts of the country. Tawa College was the only school with two choirs represented.

Each of these top 20 choirs was awarded a certain 'mark' during the week (as I understand it), although these marks were not publicly disclosed. A certain level of marks qualified for a bronze award, the next level for a silver, and the highest level was obviously the gold. 11 schools achieved a bronze award, including the two Tawa College choirs, Acafellas and Morning Stars. For these two choirs to rank amongst New Zealand's top 16 secondary school choirs is a brilliant achievement and says a lot for the school, as well as Shona and Charlotte Murray (mother and daughter team) who have directed them to this level.

Four schools attained silver, including the Wellington boys' choir, Con Anima from St Patricks in Kilbirnie and Bella Voce (girls' choir) from Villa Maria in Christchurch. And just one achieved the gold, Bel Canto (girls' choir) from Burnside High in Christchurch - a part of the country obviously successful in more than just rugby. As a matter of interest, most of the Burnside girls had been billetted by Tawa College families. Many of them had travelled to compete in an international competition in Vienna last year and came away with a gold medal. Some of this very talented group feature in the photos below.



Rebecca from Tawa
Anna from Burnside
Some of the Burnside champion choir before heading
back to Christchurch

Click here to see Dominion Post review "Youth choirs give each other loud ovation"
(Monday August 25, 2003)

Click here to see Porirua City News article "Sweet singing school kids snare top honour"
(Wednesday August 27, 2003)


See more photos of the Tawa College groups in action at June Tunes 2003

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