Brisbane to host World Premiere of iconic Australian commission for Choir
Brisbane – Gold Coast – Toowoomba – Maryborough performances

One of the world’s greatest choirs The Vienna Boys Choir returns to Australia for a very special national tour, premiering in Brisbane on September 9 this year, and taking in Queensland regional centres Toowoomba, Maryborough and the Gold Coast.

A highlight of the tour will include the World Premiere of a new Australian work by composer Elena Kats-Chernin. Based on the much-loved Australian poem, My Country by Dorothea Mackellar, the piece has been specially commissioned for the choir for this visit and will be performed for the very first tim in concert at the Setpember 9 Brisbane concert.

In its first tour of Australia since 2005, the Vienna Boys’ Choir will feature 24 carefully chosen choristers between the ages of 10 to 14 performing a wide range of its inspiring repertoire from the Renaissance to works by composers such as Mozart, Johann Strauss and Schubert.

For more than 500 years the Vienna Boys Choir (or Wiener Sängerknaben) has been an enduring symbol of Europe, having performed woks of composers such as Fux, Salieri, Haydn, Bruckner and Schubert (who was himself a chorister) as well as conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Sir George Solti.

The choir is one of the world’s most active musical ensembles and performs over 300 concerts a year. While providing the music for the Sunday Mass in Vienna’s Imperial Chapel (which they have done since 1498!) the choir also tours internationally, performing each year in some of the world’s finest concert halls.

Elena Kats-Chernin has been in Vienna rehearsing with the young choir who are very excited by their up- coming tour. “I love the clarity and agility of those voices. They can be bird-like as well as earthy, depending on the registers and there is much vocal colour to inspire a composer. VBC is an incredible ensemble, the perfection of their singing is second to none and I feel free to write challenging textures,” she said.

This is a unique opportunity to experience the beauty of 24 of the world’s youngest voices in one of the world’s oldest musical traditions.

(Elena is nominated for a Helpmann award for her Symphonia Eluvium which premiered at last year's Brisbane Festival, a work about the Queensland floods, and now she will premiere this new commission during the Brisbane Festival this year with the Vienna Boys Choir.)

(We also have a small content video of our own, about Elena, the poem and the Choir, available here: https://vimeo.com/theunderscore/sunburntharmonies)

Vienna Boys Choir Queensland Tour 2012

Brisbane Concert 1
Sunday Setpember 9 at 11am
Concert Hall at QPAC
Phone: 136 246 or qpac.com.au

Brisbane Concert 2
Friday October 12 at 8pm
Concert Hall at QPAC
Phone: 136 246 or qpac.com.au

Maryborough
Tuesday September 11 at 7.30pm
Brolga Riverside Theatre & Convention Centre
5 Walker Street, Maryborough
Phone: (07) 4122 6060 and website http://www.brolgatheatre.org

Gold Coast
Wednesday September 12 at 8pm
Gold Coast Arts Centre
Phone: (07) 5588 4000 and website http://www.theartscentregc.com.au

Toowoomba
Saturday, October 13 at 8pm
Empire Theatre
54-56 Neil Street, Toowoomba
Phone: (07) 4698 9900 ()? and website• empiretheatre.com.au