Waipu Christmas Carols 2009
The Sunday before Christmas Waipu was once again the venue for what must be the most enthusiastic carol service in New Zealand. Lauchie McLean has conducted the choir and band for many years and people come from Dargaville, Whangarei, Rodney – 80 in the choir and a band to match.¬ Joan Kennaway and others said it was the best ever.
Once again most of the seats in the Waipu Presbyterian Church are full and hour before the service begins, some come just to watch the rehearsal.  The service is piped outside, so you can come later and bring chairs to enjoy the carols in the open year.
John Thawley’s arrangement of While Shepherds Watched their Flocks has been written especially for this service, and once again was a wonderful choir anthem. The soloists, many now professional singers home for the holidays, were sublime – Kawiti singing Hark the Herald Angels in Maori was spine tingling.
The 12 days of Christmas was once again an energetic marathon of harmony and fun.
Watch this website and our Google events calendar for dates for next year’s service and practices
John Thawley
David Reed’s Reflections on the Carols
CHRISTMAS COMMENCES WITH WAIPU CAROLS
Sunday night the local Northland Christmas season began with what has been for over twenty years an annual community participation event at the Waipu Presbyterian Church. Under the direction of Lachie McLean and the Orchestrator Simon Walther well over 250 people came to hear a medley of vocal and orchestral celebrations of the true meaning of the Christmas season – the birth of the Christ child in Bethlehem. The four-part choir was composed of approximately eighty voices and the orchestra had sixteen instrumentalists – most drawn from the Mid-Northland area, and including several who made the pilgrimage from Australia and England to be in Waipu for the carol service
The performance was a true participatory event for all who attended. Some carols were sung by the choir itself in four-part harmony; others were performed by the choir and the congregation, and many were sung by everyone enlivened by the orchestra joining in to celebrate the beginning of the festive season. Some of the lovelier and more gentle numbers were performed by soloists such as Hayley ( ) Jane Larsen, Josephine O’Rourke, Kawiti Waetford, Bronnie Eves, and Debby Graham.
Most of the music would have been familiar to everyone. A new addition to the repertoire was The Candlelight Carol by John Rutter well as an exceptionally lovely arrangement of ‘See Amid the Winter’s Snow” by John Hawley of Warkworth. Then of course there was the rousing ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’.
But the true meaning of the season was emphasized as multiple members of the community arose to read the Biblical rendition of the Jerusalem birth.
The finale was a lusty rendition of the famous ‘Sleighride’ that gave a happy send-off for all who performed or attended what should be considered a highly professional and enjoyable annual event.
