Columba College’s Senior Choir, ‘Cantus Columba’, recently competed in the Big Sing competition on 13th June, and have been selected to go to Cadenza in Tīmaru on 12th and 13th August.

The Big Sing is an annual high school choral competition across New Zealand in which each choir sings two pieces, and the best choirs from each region are chosen to sing at either ‘Finale’ or one of the Cadenzas. Both of Cantus Columba’s songs were composed by women - ‘Wind und Geige’, a German piece From Tabea Squire’s Morgenstern Lieder, and ‘Truth’, a powerful piece by Andrea Ramsey describing the importance of having an uplifting community to help counteract the impact negative societal expectations have on young wāhine.

Excitingly, we won the Category 2 trophy, best classical piece, for ‘Truth’ which we were all stoked about as our hard work had really paid off.

We faced many challenges trying to pull these pieces together at the last minute as our choir director, the lovely Courtney Hickmott, has been in Christchurch for all of this year, so learning songs via Zoom was definitely an experience! However, it has certainly brought us all closer together, working out ways to learn and memorise tricky sheet music.

Cantus Columba is very proud to say we were chosen to compete at the next level of Cadenza in Tīmaru on August 12th and 13th, which is a competition between the top 15 choirs in the South Island. We cannot wait to get back into rehearsals via Zoom and are grateful for all the support we have received this year, especially from Mrs Casbolt.