World Choir Games: Rotorua’s Sir Howard Morrison Centre to host World to WAI-BOP: Gala Concert

Thousands of singers from around the world have kicked off the 13th World Choir Games in Auckland. Choirs are singing in venues across Tāmaki Makaurau and this weekend some will travel to Rotorua for a show at the Sir Howard Morrison Centre. Event coordinator Jennifer Lewy told Aleyna Martinez she would not let cost be a barrier for local choirs to participate in the global choral event.

“Everyone can sing even if they think they don’t sing well, even if they think they don’t sing in tune – everyone can sing,” says Jennifer Lewy.

As chairwoman of the New Zealand Choral Federation Waikato-Bay of Plenty branch, she would know.

Lewy is also the coordinator of the World to WAI-BOP: Gala Concert - a “regional off-shoot event” of the World Choir Games, and says she is thrilled to bring the event to Rotorua.

In Tamaki Makaurau, more than 10,000 people from 40 countries are competing in the games. Dubbed the Olympics of singing, 36 jurors will hand out gold medals throughout the competition from July 10-25.

Choirs from the Bay of Plenty and Waikato are competing but Lewy said some could not afford it.

Not wanting cost to be a barrier to participation, and realising “these international choirs aren’t just going to want to stay in Auckland”, she started developing an idea for a regional event.

The Sir Howard Morrison Centre will host over 300 choristers on Sunday for the World to WAI-BOP: Gala Concert.

Sunday’s gala will bring more than 300 choristers from the Auckland event to experience Rotorua, and local choirs will get to join in on the fun, Lewy said.

“Win for them, win for us,” Lewy said.

Exposing local choirs to different singing styles and cultures was a highlight, she said.

“The Austrian choir has offered to do an Austrian folk singing and yodelling workshop which anyone in the community can come to as well.

“We will be doing a New Zealand composition from a Tauranga composer, Leon Gray, called Pōhutukawa – it is a Matariki song cycle so it’s really special that we’re singing his piece in Rotorua for people coming to visit our country.

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“I’m excited to bring people – some people from near where I was born – over here to see what Rotorua and New Zealand is like,” Lewy said.

Her mum was Canadian, her dad British-American and Lewy developed a love for choir growing up in Bermuda

“I adopted Rotorua as my hometown … I have three Kiwi babies.”

She sings with the Rotorua District Choir at the Methodist Church on Old Taupo Rd.

“I joined the choir after I’d had my second baby and had kind of lost myself as a person.

Chairperson of the New Zealand Choral Federation Waikato-Bay of Plenty branch Jennifer Lewy grew up singing in choirs. Photo / Aleyna Martinez

“The conductor up there (Jess Bradley), she’s one of my best friends and it’s just such an amazing thing to be able to make music with people you genuinely like.

“Singing has so many benefits - you can read literature about how it’s good for you, health-wise, physically – it’s good for you mentally.

“It’s just fun to come together and sing even if it sometimes doesn’t sound perfect.”

Rotorua District Choir conductor Evelyn Falconer would take the special rendition of Pōkarekare Ana featuring all the choirs at the gala.

The piece was arranged by Lewy who said she had “never arranged music before”.

Members of the Emmy-winning Young People’s Chorus of New York City in New Zealand for the games have already visited Rotorua, exploring Wai-o-Tapu and Skyline Rotorua as they began their practice.

Choirs from Nigeria, the Philippines, China, the USA, Hamilton, Tauranga, Te Aroha, Matamata, Thames, Whitianga and Rotorua are set to perform at the Sir Howard Morrison Centre on Sunday.

The gala concert will open at 7.30pm and feature each choir performing one song before joining together to sing Pōkarekare Ana at the end.

Tickets are available on Ticketmaster or there are free sessions at 1pm and 4pm at Sir Howard Morrison Centre.

Aleyna Martinez is a multimedia journalist based in the Bay of Plenty.