2024 NZ Organ Festival – Dunedin
Matariki Weekend (27th to 30th June 2024)
THEME: RISING STARS
Do plan to make your way to Dunedin at Matariki to enjoy some southern hospitality and a long weekend experiencing Dunedin’s organ and architectural heritage.
Under the auspices of the New Zealand Organ Association, the Otago and Southland Organ Association has been chosen to trial a somewhat different Festival. We are inviting developing organists from around New Zealand to take part in the programme, alongside professional players. With encouragement, these people will be the organists of the future – our Rising Stars.
David Burchell, Dunedin City Organist and a key member of O&SOA is our Festival Organist. He is contributing significantly to the planning of the Festival musical events celebrating the many fine pipe organs around Dunedin. David and a team of players will be demonstrating these instruments, including contributions from our Developing Organists, with support provided by David. We are also inviting fellow musicians to join in the music making, particularly at St. Paul’s Cathedral, where City Choir Dunedin will highlight the fine Willis organ’s accompanimental qualities, and we hope to have music for organ and strings at Iona Presbyterian Church, Port Chalmers. At the Saturday evening Festival Dinner, held in the splendid surroundings of Knox College, we will enjoy music at dinner and a mid-evening concert in the college chapel. The culmination of the Rising Stars Festival weekend will be a Sunday afternoon recital played by David Burchell on Norma, the Dunedin Town Hall Organ.
Breaking with tradition, as Friday is a public holiday, we are beginning the Festival on the Thursday evening. The AGMs of NZOPT, followed shortly afterwards by that of the NZOA, will be held on the Friday morning. With the business side completed, we will focus our attention on the organs and music. The other venues we will be enjoying over several days are Knox Church, All Saints’, St. Matthews, St. Joseph’s Cathedral and Holy Trinity, Port Chalmers. There may be opportunities for attendees to play for a church service somewhere in Dunedin on the Sunday morning, so please advise us if you would like to do so!
Being Matariki weekend, we are also looking to the future, and will also view some of the possibilities that the digital and hybrid organ provide in the ever-evolving organ technological world. And we will of course ensure you are fed and watered along the way. The only evening we are leaving you to enjoy as you wish, is on the Friday, when many in Dunedin will be celebrating Matariki. We will provide you with some recommendations as to where you may wish to dine on the Friday evening.
If you are a student of the organ, of whatever age, do seriously consider applying to participate in our Developing Organist Opportunity at the Festival, and seek financial support for this from your regional association. The deadline to register as a Developing Organist is 25th March, so if you have not seen the guidelines and application form, do immediately contact your regional secretary or download the application
from…
Mark Hughes
President
6 March 2024
Our Musical Director
David Burchell
David Burchell is Dunedin City Organist, Organist and Choir Director of St Joseph’s Cathedral, Dunedin, and Senior Organist at All Saints’ Church, Dunedin. He is also organ tutor and graduation organist for the University of Otago. Away from the organ, he is Musical Director of City Choir Dunedin, and Musical Director of ‘The Little Box of Operas’, a company specialising in chamber opera.
He studied at Oxford University and was Organ Scholar and later Assistant Organist at New College, working for six years with the renowned chapel choir. This included a term in charge of the choir, television and radio broadcasts, and participation in the recording of many CDs as organ accompanist and soloist. He has also worked as an organ builder and a university lecturer. For eleven years he was Organist and Choir Director at Paul’s Cathedral, Dunedin, and since moving to Dunedin in 1999 he has made a considerable impression on the city’s musical life, as a choir trainer, organist, organ teacher, piano accompanist and also as an orchestral conductor with the Dunedin Youth Orchestra, Dunedin Symphony Orchestra (formerly Southern Sinfonia), Dunedin City Wind Orchestra and St Kilda Brass. He performs throughout New Zealand as an organ recitlist and accompanist. He also maintains and tunes pipe organs and tunes pianos. David has appeared as organ soloist with the Southern Sinfonia in Poulenc’s Organ Concerto, Saint- Saëns’s Organ Symphony, and in the première of Anthony Ritchie’s Organ Overture. He also plays the harpsichord, and has performed several of Bach’s harpsichord concertos. Excerpts from his 2020 organ concert at Auckland Town Hall are occasionally broadcast by RNZ Concert, and the whole recital can be viewed online, via the Auckland Town Hall Organ website. |