Sydney Philharmonia Choirs' ChorusOz 2019

Sydney Philharmonia Choirs Presents

ChorusOz 2019: Ode to Joy

9 June 2019, 5 P.M.  Sunday
Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House 


It's again that time of the year in June when hundreds of passionate singers from interstate and all over the world join the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs choristers for the annual ChorusOz weekend of singing, fun and friendship, finishing with a performance on the world-famous Sydney Opera House Concert Hall with a professional orchestra and soloists.





Ode to Joy 

Ludwig van Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' from his Ninth Symphony is one of his best-known themes. Sydney Philharmonia Choirs' ChorusOz provide joining singers experience the thrill of performing this great choral finale with hundreds other voices, plus full orchestra and soloists in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.




Insights on the Program Repertoire:

You know the ‘Ode to Joy’. Perhaps you sang it at school, or played it on recorder. If you’ve heard Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony you’ll have thrilled to its sounds in the visionary choral finale that changed the course of music forever. But do you really know it?

Over a single weekend of intensive music-making, ChorusOz 2019 is gathering to rehearse and grapple with Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ – its music and its text, its philosophy and its motivation.
Beethoven may have died nearly two hundred years ago, but his music still speaks powerfully. In today’s troubled world, Beethoven’s struggles and triumphs and his faith in humanity capture the imagination. It’s no accident that his Fifth Symphony became associated with victory in World War II, or that the ‘Ode to Joy’ was adopted as the anthem of the European Union. And it’s certainly no accident that when the Ninth Symphony was chosen to mark the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the word ‘Joy’ (Freude) was replaced by the word ‘Freedom’ (Freiheit), the word Schiller had not been free to use in his original poem.


In a concert that will include the finale from Beethoven’s opera Fidelio and highlights from his Mass in C, those themes of freedom, revolution and the community of mankind weave together. And we’ll be getting under the skin of the music to prepare what may well be the most exciting all-Beethoven concert you’ll ever hear. Certainly, with a thousand voices and full symphony orchestra, one of the loudest!


Sydney Philharmonia Choirs' ChorusOz 2019 offering: 

Weekend-long singing workshop led by Brett Weymark.
Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 June. 


PROGRAM
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN
‘Heil sei dem Tag’ – Finale from Fidelio
Highlights from the Mass in C major
‘Ode to Joy’ – Choral finale from Symphony No.9

Performance on 
Sunday 9 June at 5pm
Sydney Opera House Concert Hall

Brett Weymark conductor
Sharon Zhai soprano

Bronwyn Douglass mezzo-soprano

Brad Cooper tenor

Simon Meadows bass-baritone
Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra
Chorus Oz Choir

Running time: 1 hour and 30 minutes.There will be no interval




Video Credit: 

ChorusOz 2019 NOW OPEN. YouTube, uploaded by Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. Accessed January 27 2019.  



Resources:

1. ABC Classic broadcast of the concert LIVE!  Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" with over 800 singers live from the Sydney Opera House.
2. ChorusOz 2019. Accessed March 26, 2019. (Available at the time of access.) 
3. ChorusOz Program. 
4. Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. Accessed February 27 2019.  (Available at the time of linking.)
5. ChorusOz: Ode to Joy. Sydney Opera House, What's On/Events.  Accessed 5 June 2018. (Available at the time of linking)
6. Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven). en.wikipedia.org. Accessed May 10, 2019. (Esp take note of the Fourth Movement. Finale. This is the choral finale of Beethoven's musical representation of universal brotherhood based on the 'Ode to Joy' theme and is in theme and variations form.




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