Perth IV Festival Reviews
During the festival, we will use this area of our website to quote any reviews published about our the concerts.
In the meantime, here are some quotes from previous IV festivals held elsewhere in Australia to whet your appetite!
Past Reviews
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Perth IV 2004 (55th Australian Intervarsity Choral Festival) -
"Stabat Mater" - Neville Cohn,
West Australian, 23 February
2004.
"One cannot too highly praise the choral signing of the well-trained ensemble."
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Perth IV 2004 (55th Australian Intervarsity Choral Festival) -
"Reminder of universal, personal balm of hope" - Richard John,
The Australian, 23 February
2004.
"Under the guidance of Graham Abbott, the assembled forces of the Prague Chamber Orchestra, reinforced by members of the WASO, four magnificent soloists, and the highly disciplined Australian Intervarsity Choral Festival Choir presented a finely measured performance of Dvorak's Stabat Mater that, judging from the five curtain calls demanded by the audience, could well become a festival highlight."
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Perth IV 1990 (41st Intervarsity Choral Festival) -
"Youthful Show of Fine Form" - Dita Gevans,
West Australian, 8 February
1990.
"The 41st Intervarsity Choral Festival ended with the Festival Choir and the WA Youth Orchestra joining forces in a concert that was sold out. The choir - 150 singers from several Australian university choirs - produced an expansive and mellow sound based on well-controlled dynamics and carefully shaded tone colour."
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Adelaide IV 1994 (45th Intervarsity Choral Festival)
- "Dream run for massed choir", Elizabeth Silsbury, Advertiser,
3 February 1994.
"For the past week, about 200 students...have been in camp in Adelaide for their annual wallow in the joys of massed choral singing. The ambitions of this juggernaut are unbounded and are often greeted with some scepticism by experienced choristers. Learn Gerontius, one of the most weighty tomes in the repertoire, in a week? Somehow, nearly always, they get themselves to respectable performance standard by the grace of their enthusiasm, their seemingly inexhaustible energy and the self servicing adrenaline that the whole exercise stimulates...The choir...vanquished the sceptics. Rock solid at all times...the singers produced an impressive mass of well-balanced sound..."
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Sydney IV 1995 (46th Intervarsity Choral Festival) -
"An explosion of passion and energy", Fred Blanks,
Sydney Morning Herald, 30 January 1995.
"...the performance (of Carmina Burana at the Opera House) by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, a choir of 270 voices mostly from various Australian universities currently singing and socialising together in Sydney...was so charged with energy and passion...excellent choral attack throughout...and for the return of Fortune's Wheel, the music became positively orgasmic."
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Melbourne IV 1998 (49th Intervarsity Choral Festival)
- "A little rushin' in the Russian", Clive O'Connell,
Age, 5 February 1998.
"This kind of singing, ardent and committed, can't be completely explained by the age of most in the choir but youthful enthusiasm must be a factor. When the large male contingent blazed into the Polovtsians' vehement panegyric of Khan Konchak, the concert suddenly came to life. This was excellent singing, a powerful and vehement sound that made you wonder why we endure pallid, by-the-numbers performances from other choral bodies with longer rehearsal time and more experienced singers...the pitching from all parts of the choir was remarkably accurate and the large body's attention to note lengths and dynamics exemplary."
