Random Article Summary #121

The Australian Intervarsity Choral Festival is held every year and brings together university choir members from all Australian state capitals and Canberra. For two weeks, participants rehearse, socialise, and take part in combined concert performances. The festival also acts as the annual conference for the member choirs of AICSA, the Australian Intervarsity Choral Societies Association. This means it is both a musical event and an important meeting for the choirs involved. The Intervarsity Choral Festival (Australia) is hosted by AICSA choirs in different cities each year, with the rotation managed by AICSA’s governing body, the Australian Intervarsity Choral Council (AIVCC). Typically, each festival includes about 100 to 300 choristers who perform one to three concerts over roughly two weeks, often with a major symphony orchestra. For example, in 2008 it was hosted by the Sydney University Musical Society and featured concerts of English and Australian works. The Intervarsity Choral Festival (IVCF) has been held around Australia from the mid-1970s onward, featuring major choral works such as Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle (Hobart, 1975), large-scale requiems and masses in later years (including Verdi, Bruckner, and Elgar), and special commissioned pieces by Australian composers. It continued annually until 2020, when the Brisbane festival was deferred due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Sydney 2021 event became the 71st IVCF instead of the planned 72nd. The first Australian InterVarsity Choral Festival was held in 1950, when Sydney University Musical Society hosted Melbourne University Choral Society for a week-long rehearsal camp and a combined concert. Over time, more university choirs joined, and by 1973 choirs from all Australian capitals (except Darwin) were represented, making the festival the largest regularly occurring choral event in the country. From 1975 onward, the IVCF aimed to perform major works to a high standard, often with professional orchestras. Notable examples include performing Verdi’s Requiem in the Sydney Opera House in 1975, collaborating with major professional orchestras for Mahler’s “Symphony of a Thousand” in 1988, and later presenting Dvořák’s Stabat Mater in Perth in 2004 with the Prague Chamber Orchestra. IVCF has a long, though not continuous, tradition of performing works by Australian composers. Since 1962, at least sixteen IVCF performances have included festival-commissioned pieces, such as Matthew Orlovich’s Blue Gum Forest (2009), Anne Boyd’s Missa Pacifica (2008), and David Cassat’s Flesh to Stone (2005). Other festivals have also premiered Australian works, including Paul Stanhope’s Pirramimma, performed in Brisbane in 2007 through a collaboration between the 58th IVCF and the Bonyi International Youth Festival.