Touring
The choir regularly tours throughout Australia and has made regular international tours, to countries including England, Hong Kong, Wales, and New Zealand. In 2004 the ACC undertook a major concert tour of Europe and the United Kingdom, performing in cities such as Vienna, Salzburg, Prague, Edinburgh, Cambridge and London. In 2005 the choir toured New Zealand for the second time, and in January 2007 the ACC undertook its first concert tour of mainland China, performing in cities such as Beijing, Xian, Shanghai, Tianjin and Huangyan. In 2015, The ACC travelled to the United States to tour the East Coast and participate in the Washington D.C. Serenade Festival. The choir also made appearances in Toronto. In 2016, the Australian Children's Choir toured the East Coast of Australia to mark its 40th Anniversary, making appearances in Brisbane, the Gold Coast including Surfers Paradise, Sydney and Wollongong. The ACC toured Europe in 2018 performing in Austria, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and visiting Germany.
Engagements
The ACC regularly appears in concert with many of Melbourne's leading musical ensembles, including groups such as the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Royal Melbourne Philharmonic, the Academy of Melbourne, the Central Band of the RAAF, the[Australian Classical Players, Royal Australian Naval Band, and the Victorian Police Showband.
Highlights in recent years have included Mahler's 8th Symphony with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under conductor Markus Stenz, a featured appearance at the nationally televised AFI Awards Ceremony, numerous televised performances on Rove Live, and concerts with the legendary rock band Kiss and the Melbourne Symphony at the Telstra Dome. The ACC appeared at the 2004 AFL Grand Final. It participated in a series of filmed international television commercials for the Korean Motor Company Kia, filmed on various locations around Victoria, and gave a live televised performance to an estimated one billion people for China Television to mark the 30th anniversary of Australian-Chinese relations. The Choir has performed at opening ceremonies at both Marvel and AMI stadiums
Leading artists the choir has recently appeared with include Julie Anthony, Marina Prior, Rhonda Burchmore, Marcia Hines, Delta Goodrem, Rove McManus, David Hobson and Peter Brocklehurst. Past recordings include John Farnham's Whispering Jack album, and the single "You're the Voice", as well as Missy Higgins, and numerous recordings ranging from folk music and commercials to movie soundtracks.
The choir has produced five CDs; Leave No Song Unsung (which was nominated for a Sounds Australian Award in 2004 for best Choral Recording),Christmas Lullaby, featuring music for the festive season and Like a Rainbow. Fire in The Heavens was recorded to commemorate the Black Saturday Bushfires. More recently Australian Stories was released - songs of the Great South Land. These have been featured on ABC Classic FM and 3MBS FM.
2006 included performances of J.S. Bach's St Matthew Passion with the Melbourne Bach Choir, Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms and Orff's Carmina Burana (with the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic) as well as the "Irish Songs of Praise" concerts and appearances at the Melbourne International Fashion Festival at BMW Edge and at the Stringybark Folk Festival. The choir also performed in concerts with the Salvation Army, a series of concerts with the Victoria Police Showband at the Police Academy, a series of concerts at The Australia Club, the RACV Club, several corporate performances at various venues around the city, including Banyule's Carols by Candlelight, and Carols in the Cathedral in St Paul's Cathedral. In 2007, the choir received a contract to perform in the Australian Ballet season of The Nutcracker at the State Theatre, Victoria. These were in addition to the numerous charity and local community performances the choir performs throughout the year.
In 2009 the choir started the year by performing (along with many other choirs) in the Day of Mourning for those lost during the Black Saturday bushfires. They also performed Gordon Kerry's Requiem Tropes, a work based on the Mozart Requiem. Throughout the year the choir also participated in several recording, including pieces such as "World Keeps Turning" by Jetty Road and "Advance Australia Fair" with Judith Durham. The choir ended their year with several Christmas performances, notably Carols in the Cathedral with the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic and several guest soloists.
The War Requiem, Op. 66, is a large-scale setting of the Requiem composed by Benjamin Britten mostly in 1961 and completed in January 1962. The War Requiem was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which was built after the original fourteenth-century structure was destroyed in a World War II bombing raid. The traditional Latin texts are interspersed, in telling juxtaposition, with extra-liturgical poems by Wilfred Owen, written during World War I.
Sir David Valentine Willcocks, was a British choral conductor, organist, composer and music administrator. He was particularly well known for his association with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, which he directed from 1957 to 1974, making frequent broadcasts and recordings. Several of the descants and carol arrangements he wrote for the annual service of Nine Lessons and Carols were published in the series of books Carols for Choirs which he edited along with Reginald Jacques and John Rutter. He was also director of the Royal College of Music in London.
The Choir of King's College, Cambridge is an English choir. It is considered one of today's most accomplished and renowned representatives of the great English choral tradition. It was created by King Henry VI, who founded King's College, Cambridge, in 1441, to provide daily singing in his Chapel, which remains the main task of the choir to this day.
The Cambridge Singers is an English mixed voice chamber choir formed in 1981 by their director John Rutter with the primary purpose of making recordings under their own label Collegium Records.
Sir Gilbert Levine, GCSG is an American conductor. He is considered an "outstanding personality in the world of international music television." He has led the PBS concert debuts of the Staatskapelle Dresden, Royal Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, WDR Symphony Orchestra, and the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the PBS premieres of works including the Beethoven Missa Solemnis, Bach Magnificat in D, Haydn Creation, and Bruckner Symphony 9.
Los Angeles Children's Chorus (LACC) is a children's choral youth organisation based in Los Angeles. LACC has appeared in more than 300 performances with such organizations as the Los Angeles Opera, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
Stephen Farr is a British organist who until 2014 was Director of Music at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He studied with Robert Munns and David Sanger in London and Cambridge. He also received tuition from Piet Kee in Haarlem and Hans Fagius in Copenhagen, and as a student was the recipient of grants from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust and the Worshipful Company of Musicians.
The San Diego Children's Choir is a nonprofit organization committed to providing high quality music education and performance experiences to a diverse range of youth from the San Diego, California area. Founded in 1990, the San Diego Children's Choir is the area's oldest and largest choral training program serving more than 500 children ages four–18 at locations throughout San Diego County. It was incorporated as a non-profit public benefit corporation in 1990. Rehearsals and performances of fine music literature form the foundation of instruction and provide the youth of San Diego opportunities for artistic and personal growth through choral music performance.
The New London Children's Choir is a children's choir which rehearses at Highgate Primary School in North London, giving singing opportunities to members aged seven to eighteen. Members live in London and surrounding areas. It was founded in 1991 by Artistic Director Ronald Corp. As well as performing its own concerts, the choir has sung with orchestras and ensembles in many concert halls and opera houses worldwide and features on several film and TV soundtracks and CDs.
Boni Pueri is a Czech boys' choir founded in 1982, which has become one of Europe's most famous musical ensembles.
The musical foundation of Chichester Cathedral consists of the organist and master of the choristers, the assistant organist and the organ scholar; together with six singing men, eighteen choristers, six probationers – and including a head chorister and a senior chorister who both wear a notable medallion on a red ribbon according to their office held. The choristers and probationers are all boarders at the Prebendal School, the cathedral's choir school. The lay vicars are professional singers who all have everyday jobs.
Andrew Keith Wailes is an Australian conductor and music director. Winner of the Australasian International Choral Conducting Competition in Brisbane in 1999, he is the current Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the Melbourne University Choral Society, and Music Director and Conductor of the Box Hill Chorale. From 1999 to 2020 he served as Artistic Director of The Australian Children's Choir, and for a decade was Director of the Australian Catholic University Melbourne Campus Choir. He is a former President of the Australian Intervarsity Choral Societies Association, and is a former Artistic Administrator and Artistic Director of The Chamber Strings of Melbourne.
Royal Melbourne Philharmonic (RMP) is a 120-voice choir and orchestra in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was established in 1853, and is reportedly Australia's oldest surviving cultural organisation. The Royal Melbourne Philharmonic is Australia's oldest musical organisation that has been continuously existing for over 150 years. Among its programmes, there have been large-scale concerts celebrating classical composers including Bach, Mendelssohn and Beethoven. The Royal Melbourne Philharmonic is managed under the direction of Andrew Wailes, the artistic director of the orchestra.
The London Philharmonic Choir (LPC) is one of the leading independent British choirs in the United Kingdom based in London. The patron is Princess Alexandra, The Hon Lady Ogilvy and Sir Mark Elder is president. The choir, comprising more than 200 members, holds charitable status and is governed by a committee of 6 elected directors. As a charity, its aims are to promote, improve, develop and maintain education in the appreciation of the art and science of music by the presentation of public concerts.
Bath Bach Choir, formerly The City of Bath Bach Choir (CBBC), is based in Bath, Somerset, England, and is a registered charity. Founded in 1946 by Cuthbert Bates, who also became a founding father of the Bath Bach Festival in 1950, the choir's original aim was to promote the music of Johann Sebastian Bach via periodic music festivals. Bates – an amateur musician with a great love and understanding of this composer's works – was also the CBBC's principal conductor and continued in this role until his sudden death, in April 1980. This untimely exit pre-empted his planned retirement concert performance of J. S Bach's Mass in B minor, scheduled for July of the same year, and effectively ended the first period of the choir's history.
Adrian Frederick Partington is an English conductor, chorus master, organist and pianist. He is director of music at Gloucester Cathedral, joint conductor of the Three Choirs Festival and artistic director for the Gloucester festival years, director of the BBC National Chorus of Wales, conductor of Gloucester Choral Society, and former conductor of Bristol Choral Society and leader of the postgraduate choral conducting course at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.
Jonathan Gregory is the Director of Music of the UK-Japan Music Society and UK-Japan Choir, having previously been Director of Music at Leicester Cathedral from 1994 - 2010.
Allan Zavod was an Australian pianist, composer, jazz musician and occasional conductor whose career was mainly in America.
Melbourne University Choral Society (MUCS) is a 120-voice choir in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.The choir is affiliated with the University of Melbourne, but is also open to non-students who are willing and able to perform to the choirs standards.
The National Children's Chorus of the United States of America (NCC) is a private, non-profit organization, and one of the largest children's choruses in the world. It has 800 choristers and its members are between the ages of five and eighteen, and divided into Junior Division and Senior Division across its four chapter cities - Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco.
