History
The first Australian InterVarsity Choral Festival took place in 1950 when the Sydney University Musical Society (SUMS) hosted the Melbourne University Choral Society (MUCS) for a week-long rehearsal camp culminating in a combined concert. Other university choirs joined over the years, with all State capitals (except Darwin in the Northern Territory) having at least one member choir by 1973. The IVCF has since become the largest regularly occurring choral festival in Australia.
From 1975 on, when the 26th IVCF performed Verdi's Requiem in the then recently opened Sydney Opera House, IVCFs have striven to perform large-scale works to high standards with professional orchestras where appropriate and available. The 37th IVCF (Brisbane, 1986) was the first to work with its state's peak professional orchestra, the then Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the major work on the program being Herbert Howells' Hymnus Paradisi. Two years later (1988), to celebrate Australia's bicentennial, the 39th IVCF collaborated with the Sydney Philharmonia and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Charles Dutoit to perform Mahler's Symphony number 8 ("Symphony of a Thousand"), again in the Sydney Opera House.
More recently, the 55th IVCF (Perth, 2004) took part in the Perth International Arts Festival to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Antonín Dvořák by performing his Stabat Mater with the Prague Chamber Orchestra under Australian conductor Graham Abbott.
Read more about this topic: Inter Varsity Choral Festival (Australia)
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