Wednesday June 25, 2003, Wellington Town Hall

The following article is from Shona Murray, HOD Music, Tawa College, and was written in advance of the event.
Official photos featuring many of the performers can be seen further down this page.

Tawa College's 'June Tunes' has become an annual event with last year's 'June Tune's V' welcoming the new Principal, Murray Lucas. This year 'June Tunes VI' has been aptly given the title 'Beat the Winter Blues' and features all the instrumental and choral groups who have been rehearsing regularly every week since February for this showcase evening. The concert begins at 7.00pm on Wednesday June 25 in the Wellington Town Hall. Tickets cost $7.00 and are available from the Tawa College office or as door sales on the night.

Tawa College is well known for its Choral traditions with its large all-comers choir, 'The Dawn Chorus' of 180 members forming the foundation for three selected choirs - the Morning Stars, Acafellas and Maiden Tawa. This year the groups have been involved in concerts for the Barbershop and 'Big Sing' Regional Festivals. The Acafellas and Maiden Tawa along with the MIB boys' barbershop quartet and Take Note, the senior girls' quartet won their sections in the recent barbershop regional competitions. The four groups will now go on to sing in the national finals in August later this year. Acafellas, Maiden Tawa and Morning Stars also sang in the Wellington regional 'Big Sing' on June 4, and both the Morning Stars and Acafellas have been selected for the National Finale of the 'Big Sing', to be held in Wellington on August 19-22. Only twenty choirs from throughout New Zealand are selected for this prestigious event and we are the only school with two choirs represented.

The instrumentalists in the school all sing in the Dawn Chorus as part of a philosophy that performance on an instrument is improved by singing. So throughout the evening's entertainment the audience will see many of the same students performing in a choir, then in instrumental groups like the Concert Band, the Jazz Band, the String Group, the Percussion Group, the Classical Guitar Group, and the Recorder Group. Talented young Year 13 pianist, Michael Pansters, will also feature as a soloist. Other Year 13 students, Dominique Tennant and Greg Pharo, will accompany the Dawn Chorus on flute and oboe in two of the choir's songs. These young and able instrumentalists will be participating in the regional chamber music competitions over the weekend of June 20. 'Subsidence', one of the school's rock bands, has been selected to perform the same night in the Wellington/Hutt Valley regional finals in the Wellington Town Hall.

At the same time as rehearsing for this annual concert, many of the students are rehearsing for this year's Tawa College musical 'Jesus Christ Superstar' to be held at the College on the last weekend of July and the first weekend of August. So they are a talented and committed group of young people.

Tawa College has always a close association with its contributing schools, Tawa Intermediate and Tawa Primary. Therefore it is appropriate that Tawa Intermediate's well known Madrigal Choir will perform a bracket of songs under the direction of their talented music specialists. This year Karen Gifford, a fine musician and kapa haka leader, will introduce us to the Tawa Primary Kapa Haka group. Karen's son, Matthew Gifford, is the bass in the national champion Tawa College Boys' Barbershop Quartet MIB (Musical Island Boys).

The College are delighted to have the opportunity to perform in a world class venue like the Wellington Town Hall. There is no other venue large enough for a choir of 180 like the Dawn Chorus to sing in. As well as acapella singing and accompaniment with piano and rhythm section, the singers enjoy an opportunity to sing with the impressive Wellington Town Hall pipe organ. This year the audience will get a chance to stretch their legs as they join in the singing of 'Do You Hear the People Sing' along with the choir, piano and pipe organ.

We hope you will take the opportunity, at a very nominal cost, to support the talented youth of today, while also enjoying 'beating those winter blues'!