The Sunshine Coast’s premiere vocal ensemble, Oriana Choir presents Johann Sebastian Bach's monumental St Matthew Passion on Sunday 8 November at 2:00pm at Venue 114, Bokarina. Under the baton of acclaimed conductor Kim Kirkman, this extraordinary performance, featuring double chorus and double orchestra, brings together the rich voices of Oriana Choir, the Sinfonia of St Andrew's, a special appearance by the Sunshine Coast Youth Choir, and distinguished soloists Michelle Bul

Last Sunday’s performance of Oriana Choir’s An Oriana Songbook, at Stella Maris Performance Centre, was a total delight for performers and audience alike. From the full-throated, full-volume, full-on declaration, “I will be the gladdest thing!”, to the sheer, ecstatic exuberance of the finale, “Go Where I Send Thee”, Oriana Choir delivered nearly two hours of joyous, uplifting, beautiful music – music of such variety, such emotional breadth and depth, and touching on so many

There never was a truer saying than ‘tempus fugit’ – time really does fly, and in one direction only – forward. It’s hard to believe that Oriana Choir has been rehearsing the repertoire for An Oriana Songbook for nearly three months. It feels more like three weeks! But that’s probably an indication of what an enjoyable experience this rehearsal season has been. A programme of varied, interesting, appealing, and unanimously beautiful songs; a musical director whose love and

*Performance Back in the pioneering days of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), it was so exciting for a fourteen-year-old boy (me!) to listen to the lead-up to an imminent launch from Cape Canaveral. The jargon they used was fascinating – “Roger, Mercury 3”; “Copy that, Control”; “T minus 20 and Counting”; and, most exciting of all, “We are Go for Launch”. Then the countdown, and “We have lift-off” (never “Blast-off – that was strictly science fiction m

I wonder if dear old Will Shakespeare had any idea, when he penned that famous, immortal question in Romeo and Juliet, just how useful and universal it would become. “What’s in a name?”, indeed! Well, it's the name of Oriana’s next concert outing, for one thing. But why a song book, and why an Oriana songbook? And what exactly is a songbook? Of course, the generally accepted definition of the word is a collection of song lyrics, with or without the sheet music, in some so