Anglican school choir to sing in Rome
Amanda Fisher for the Dominion Post
| 25 Jun 2011
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Conducting her Anglican choir as they sing in the Vatican will be the high point of a Catholic music teacher's career.
Chilton St James' Seraphim Choir will begin a three-week tour of Europe next month, including singing at mass in St Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Choir director Ella Buchanan Hanify said there was no issue about pupils from Lower Hutt's private Anglican school performing in the heart of the Catholic world.
"We live in ecumenical times – there's just great collaboration between the churches these days and it was never an issue. We're all with a similar Christian background."
They would not be the first non-Catholic choir performing in the Vatican, she said, although she understood the honour was generally reserved for choirs with "a similar Christian background".
Ms Buchanan Hanify said she was expecting a big crowd, as it was tourist season.
The trip was initially planned so the choir could take part in a children's choral festival touring Vienna, Salzburg and Prague, but was later extended.
"I just said, `I want to go to Rome'. It was an idea I threw out."
Before long that wish had become a reality thanks to a tour organiser, who told her the choir would sing mass at St Peter's.
The girls will sing sacred songs, including Mozart's Laudate Dominum, as well as Ms Buchanan Hanify's own composition of Ave Maria and works by her composer sister, Dorothy Buchanan.
They had been working toward the trip for 2 1/2-years, but Rome would be the special part, she said. "I feel hugely grateful. It's just the high point of my teaching and performing journey. It's a gift ... probably a huge blessing."
The choir's 30 members had been fundraising to help pay their estimated $7000 travel costs, with many raising half the funds needed.
Seventeen-year-old Grace Brown said her father, who works for Weta, had organised a charity night at Park Road Post Production studios, with an auction that included Tom Scott cartoons and a signed bust of King Kong.
Choir members had been practising for about five hours a week and were excited to take in the sights, especially Rome, she said.
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