The schedule is set, the performers are ready and all that’s left is the fine tuning for the classical music festival, Romancing the Stones, from 6 to 8 September.
Kicking off with a night at the opera – a film, La Traviata, at the Warwick Twin Cinema on Friday 6 September – the festival will then concentrate on local performances including Sonnets of Love featuring harp, singing and readings of the works of Keats, Yeats and Shakespeare on Saturday morning 7 September at 10.30 at the Warwick Uniting Church.
The afternoon will showcase youth, with the Young Voices presentation at St Mark’s Anglican Church starting at 2pm while the evening will be a fun dinner event featuring some curly musical questions on Spix and Spex (pre-bookings required for this).
Sunday’s Fabulous Classics, a combined choral and instrumental presentation at St Mary’s Catholic Church, will be the grand finale of Warwick’s first classical music festival.
Heavily involved in the group organising the Romancing the Stones festival, Southern Downs Vibrant Arts Inc, is the musical director of East Street Singers, Jillian Hulme, who is a musical educator and has shared her beautiful soprano voice and her passion choral music with the people of Warwick for 40 years.
Fabulous Classics, starting at 2pm on 8 September, will feature works by Vivaldi, Mozart, Bizet and Faure as well as iconic pieces including the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Verdi’s Nabucco, Lloyd Webber’s Pie Jesu, and the renowned Hallelujah Chorus.
The East Street Singers feature around 20 vocalists. A similar number of instrumentalists in the Southern Downs Orchestra will play at the event. Musicians Michael Spiller, Gabi Laws and Michael Funder from Warwick along with Belinda Lister and SDRC Councillor Morwenna Harslett from Stanthorpe are among the players. A highlight of the concert will be when two classical singers from Toowoomba demonstrate the beauty of men’s voices when they perform the much loved Pearl Fishers’ Duet. Tickets for Fabulous Classics can be purchased at the door or online at Trybooking.com.
