The Lieder
Newsletter for the Christchurch Liedertafel Male Voice Choir.
Issue 11
May 2025
Editorial
Great news. An anonymous donor has sponsored our next concert venue costs, allowing us to stay at the St Andrews Chapel for the foreseeable future.
I have been watching the series on the World Choir Games held in Auckland 2024. A great series. You can watch it On Demand or on You tube. Some good stories about choirs getting to games.
Nice to see the new Court Theatre opened and our own Richard and Kate Burt at the opening function. Barb and I were fortunate enough to have a tour though the theatre earlier this week. What a fabulous venue for the arts. Credit to all involved. Nice to see all the prominent families of Christchurch contributing to the building of this fine asset.
MM
Dates for your Diary
- Concert dates for the rest of the year.
- 22nd June Combined choir at Aldersgate
- 26th July Mid-winter Social at John Dunford’s home 9pm
- 9th August Dress Rehearsal 9-00am at St Andrews Chapel
- 10th August Concert at St Andrews Chapel
- 29th Nov Dress rehearsal 9am at St Andrews Chapel
- 30th Aug Concert St Andrews Chapel
- Friday 6 June 2025 Volunteer Opportunity – The Big Sing 2025
The NZ Choral Federation is looking for volunteers to support
The Big Sing Canterbury & West Coast Regionals at the Christchurch Town Hall.
Roles include front-of-house, door supervision, and choir hosting. Whether you’re free for a few hours or the whole day, your help would be greatly appreciated.
Sign up here: https://forms.gle/mb25jNLP9MJ86ESK6
Choir Profiles
Nigel Salsbury,
I have been singing with The Liedertafel for a number of years during which time I have made many good friends, sharing interest in a variety if music. The experience within the choir is un-surpassed with its long history and its experience in Christchurch. Music is something which allows a moment if escapism from the many challenges which life offers and for me its a place where I can absorb myself in music but also develop music to share with others for their entertainment and enjoyment. For anyone interested I would recommend giving it a go.
Notes from the Podium
With our second concert of the year, Love and Longing, we’ve stepped into a programme that places storytelling at its core. Singing well is one thing—but singing meaningfully means knowing the text, understanding the text, and then conveying its message with honesty and clarity. That’s what draws people in. That’s what stays with them.
Our folk bracket is a perfect example. These aren’t just beautiful melodies—they’re miniature dramas, poems, and portraits. Tantsulaul opens with over-confident exuberance. She’s Like the Swallow offers a quiet, aching melancholy. Scarborough Fair weaves a mysterious, almost dreamlike dialogue, while Dance to Your Daddy delivers playful warmth with a wink. Each piece has its own voice, and it’s our job to let it speak through us.
As we rehearse, keep coming back to the words. Ask what the song is saying—and how you can help say it. That’s where real musical storytelling begins.
History Section.
Extracts from History book 1895-1985. Our early years.
In June1885, less than a month after the Societies foundation, the first concert was presented. This was performed on the 11th June in the rooms over Milner & Thompsons premises in High Street. Accommodation in the Liedertafel rooms being limited, the audience was restricted to men, the concert thus becoming the first of the gentlemen’s evenings which for the next three decades were known as “Herren Abend.” The cyclostyled programme, the work of Arthur Appleby showed the vignette heads of Handel, Mozart, Weber, Mendelson, Schubert and Beethoven, with the name Liedertafel surmounting a lyre On each side in a spiral scroll were shown the names of composers of part songs and glees although with the exception of the final chorus, the programme was confined to quartets and solo items, illustrating that the Liedertafel had not yet begun to acquire the extensive library it was later to assemble.
In its first infant weeks the Liedertafel had no subscribers and the audience at its first concert was there by invitation. Fifty-five invitations were issued and fifty were accepted. Of those who attended twenty submitted their names during the evening for election as honorary members and on June the 18th at the practise meeting following the concert they, together with seven others, were duly elected and became the original subscribers of the Christchurch Liedertafel Male Voice Choir.
The wearing of the silver Lyre, the distinctive badge of Liedertafel membership, was inaugurated early in the piece. After practise on the 31st July, the same evening on which the society had appeared at the Orchestral Society concert, the President, WG Rhind, presented a lyre to each of the office bearers to be worn as a decoration. Later it was extended to all performing members and the gold lyre to signify life membership was introduced.
Humour
ONE LINERS
- Retired, under new management, see wife for details.
- Happiness is realising my children have turned out to be amazing humans.
- Doing nothing is hard work, you never know when you’re done.
- Remember to include yourself in your list of things to take care of today.
- I have reached the age in life when my train of thought often leaves the station without me.
- To my children, don’t make fun of me when helping with computers, remember, I taught you how to use a spoon.
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