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ATLAS VOICES

Atlas Voices (originally Pro Arte Chorale) began in 2011 and was established as a collection of Christchurch’s best vocal talent dedicated to presenting exciting music performances to audiences in Canterbury. The group continues to push the boundaries and expectations of choral music by presenting a variety of styles at an exceptional standard under the expert leadership of American maestro, Ravil Atlas.

AMAHL (Dress Rehearsal – photos by Clinton Lloyd, with thanks to The Piano)

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Website design: Georgina Rees-Stevenson, Atlas Voices Graphics: Donna Alley, Banner Photo: Graeme Cox

Orchestra

PIANO & REPETITEUR: Matthew Oswin

AMAHL ORCHESTRA:
Violin 1: Amandine Guerin, Rakuto Kurano, Henry Nicholson
Violin 2: Anne Lardner, Hijiri Yamamoto,
Viola: Anne Robinson
Cello: Iain Brandram-Adams
Bass: Matthew Harris
Flute: Julie Gaudin
Oboe: Ashleigh Mowbray
Clarinet: Georgina Rees-Stevenson
Bassoon: Gabriel Baird
French Horn: Julian Weir
Trumpet: Thomas Eves
Percussion: Craig Given, Jeremy Thin
Harp/Keyboard: Michael Cai

HODIE
Trumpets: Thomas Eves, Anthony Smith, Toby Buckner, David Petch
Trombones: Scott Taitoko, Chris Petch, Karl Margevka
Tuba: Pablo Ruiz-Henao
Organ: Lewis Grey

Cast

PRINCIPALS:
Amahl: Grant Weihs
Mother: Amanda Atlas
King Melchior: Malcolm Leitch (matinee), Alex Robinson (evening)
King Kaspar: Thomas McCabe
King Balthazar: William O’Brien
Page: Alex Robinson (matinee), Malcolm Leitch (evening)

Amahl understudies Matthew Lee and William Luhrs

CHORUS:
Soprano: Margot Holcroft, Andrea Koorey, Tara Martin, Leanne O’Mahony, Shannon Peck, Karen Tewnion-Smith
Alto: Chloë Ellis, Julie Gaudin (2nd half only), Hannah Mason, Emily McCulloch, Rosamund McDonald, Georgina Rees-Stevenson (2nd half only), Michelle Ruske, Karyn Taylor-Moore
Tenor: Jason Eager, Andy Fu, Thomas McCabe, Mike McLeod, Shane Morrow, James-Paul Mountstevens
Bass: Nicholas Davey, Gavin Hurley, Malcolm Leitch, Ben Olijkan, Dann Olykan, Alex Robinson, Douglas Shields

CHRISTCHURCH GIRLS CHOIR: directors Andrea Koorey and Shannon Peck

Grant Weihs - Amahl

Grant is 13 and is living with his family in Christchurch during 2018 while his father is on sabbatical here from the US. He started his singing career with an Anglican boy’s choir several years ago. He has also sung with choirs at his schools, both in the US and in Aurora Voices and Malestrom at Burnside High School here in Christchurch. He has played piano, flute, recorder, steel drums, drums and has recently started the trombone.

Grant has 2 siblings and is from Baltimore, Maryland. When not singing he enjoys math, science, and participating in sports.

Alex Robinson - King Melchior/Page

Having been involved in plenty of singing while growing up in Christchurch, Alex was interested in becoming a jazz crooner and took the logical step of studying for a commerce degree. While at university he discovered that the established genre for singing accountants was opera, and thus joined Southern Opera’s chorus for Il Trovatore in 2008. From there he was hooked and has sung with opera choruses for the last 10 years (Southern Opera, and then New Zealand Opera), along with singing a variety of solo and small group work in local concerts and with his opera entertainment group, The Operatives. Alex gained his LTCL in singing in 2014, and also undertook a period of private opera studies in Adelaide with his partner Katherine in 2015, before settling back in Christchurch and starting a family.

In addition, Alex has found himself being a founding member of a few different vocal groups in Christchurch over the last 10 years, including the Opera Club, the Christchurch Pops Choir, and Atlas Voices, and also serves as Treasurer on the Atlas Voices Trust – a charity he helped establish dedicated to supporting the ensemble’s ambitions.

Alex has had the privilege of being a baritone soloist for Atlas Voices’ performance of Mozart’s Requiem, and for emerging local composer Rosa Elliott’s premier of What Have We Done To Our Rivers? with the Resonance Ensemble. He is currently preparing a recital of British art song featuring Stanford, Vaughan Williams, and Ireland, with a view to performing it in 2019. King Melchior in Amahl and the Night Visitors is Alex’s first, but hopefully not last, principal role in staged opera.

Thomas McCabe - King Kaspar

Thomas has been involved in productions and musical performance from a young age.

He is an accomplished cornet player having performed in the National Secondary Schools Brass Band and as a performing member of St Kilda Brass in Dunedin. He is currently a performing member of the Nor’west Brass Band in Christchurch.

Throughout high school, Thomas was heavily involved in school productions, orchestras, bands and choirs, both as a group and soloist performer. He also competed with distinction in several vocal singing competitions.

Thomas has been a performing member of Atlas Voices since the middle of 2016 and has been a member of Christchurch Youth Choir since 2015.

He has been involved with Christchurch Showbiz shows since 2016, working as part of the floor crew team in Evita in 2016 and again in Sister Act in 2017. His onstage debut with Showbiz was as part of the chorus for An Evening of Rogers and Hammerstein Classics in 2017 and he has more recently worked as a follow spot operator Les Miserables.

Performing in Amahl is Thomas’s first opera and his first named role in a staged show.

William O'Brien - King Balthazar

William O’Brien is a New Zealand Bass who began private vocal tuition with voice teacher Margot Button in 2011. Graduating from the University of Canterbury in 2015 with a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Commerce (Econ) William has continued his private voice tuition following his undergraduate studies and is also an alumnus of both the New Zealand Singing School (2015) and New Zealand Opera School (2018).

William has performed with the Freemason’s Opera Chorus for New Zealand Opera’s Christchurch productions of La Bohème (2014), as well La Traviata (2016), Carmen (2017), and Tosca (2018). He has also recently performed as the Foreman of the Jury in New Zealand Opera’s Christchurch production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial By Jury. Upcoming performances include the role of King Balthazar in a Christchurch production of Menotti’s opera Amahl and the Night Visitors, as well as performing Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony with Voices New Zealand and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. William is also a regular performer with the Canterbury Opera Club.

Concurrent to his singing, William is currently working in Christchurch full time as a barrister and solicitor with the objective of soon turning his full attention to the pursuit of performance opera studies overseas.

Amanda Atlas - Mother

New Zealand dramatic soprano Amanda Atlas embarked on her international career in 1999, spending ten years singing for various opera companies and orchestras in the US and Europe. Role highlights include Verdi’s Amelia, Alice Ford
and Desdemona; Puccini’s Tosca, Suor Angelica, Musetta, Mimi, and Madama Butterfly; Poulenc’s one-woman opera La Voix Humaine; Mascagni’s Suzel (L’amico Fritz); Weill’s Rose (Street Scene); and Offenbach’s Giulietta.

Ms Atlas is now based in New Zealand and Australia. Recent engagements include Magda Sorel (The Consul) in New York, Gerhilde and Sieglinde (cover) in the NZSO’s tour of Wagner’s Die Walkure, Senta (cover) for New Zealand Opera, Leonora (Il Trovatore) for Melbourne’s CitiOpera, Witch/Mother (Hansel and Gretel), and in concert – soprano soloist in Verdi’s Requiem, Bruckner’s F Minor Mass, Strauss’ Four Last Songs, and Mahler’s Second Symphony and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra. 2016 saw her make her Opera Australia debut singing Siegrune in their internationally acclaimed Ring Cycle. She is in frequent demand as a soloist with touring entity Operatunity, and will sing concerts in India next year with the Mumbai Symphony Orchestra and Simon O’Neill.

Malcolm Leitch - King Melchior/Page

Malcolm’s singing career began at Chichester Cathedral (UK) as a boy chorister. Since then, he has sung for eight years as Bass Lay Clerk at ChristChurch Cathedral (NZ), and has recently returned to New Zealand after an extended period singing in the UK, primarily based at Chelmsford Cathedral as Bass Lay Clerk. During this time he also sang at the Cathedrals of St Paul’s (London), Canterbury, York Minster, Ely, Christ Church (Oxford), Worcester, Winchester and Chichester, and at the Cambridge Colleges of Kings and St John’s.

Malcolm additionally was a well known and in-demand concert soloist in the London and East Anglia regions, with performed repertoire including Handel’s Messiah, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, Fauré and Mozart’s Requiems, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Bach’s St John Passion and Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music. In addition to being the principal bass soloist at Chelmsford Cathedral, Malcolm also performed regular recitals around the region, including song cycles, cantatas and lieder by composers such as Rachmaninov, Schubert, Bach, Vaughan Williams, Purcell and Britten. Malcolm has performed, recorded and live, on television and radio, and has featured on various CD recordings, in both the UK and New Zealand.

Now based in Christchurch, Malcolm has a a variety of up-coming engagements around New Zealand across the major centres in opera and as concert soloist.