In the last few years, Intervarsity Choral Festivals have performed in all the major capital cities with orchestras, soloists and conductors of international reputation. Below is a brief description of some of the concerts the festival choir has performed in. Many of these concerts have since been broadcast numerous times on ABC Classic FM.
In 2000, the festival choir performed Verdi’s Requiem with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in the Queensland Performing Arts Centre. Dr Roy Wailes conducted the concert. In 2001 another work was commissioned. This time the work was by Bruce Stewart, and performed in Bonython Hall at Adelaide University with conductor Christopher Kiver. In the same festival, Timothy Sexton conducted the chorus and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in the Thebarton Theatre, in a performance of Bernstein’s Mass.
In 2002, Ben Macpherson OAM was involved with his seventh IV as a chorus master or conductor, when he was chorus master for the performance of Rachmaninoff’s Vespers, which was conducted by Graham Abbott.
In February 2003, AICSA put together a choir of mainly male voices from around Australia to perform Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder in at the Perth Concert Hall with the Australian Youth Orchestra. This was the gala closing concert for the Perth International Arts Festival. However, the actual IVCF that year was in Canberra in July, where the chorus performed Monteverdi’s Vespers.
In 2004, the festival choir returned to Perth, again for the Perth International Arts Festival, this time to perform Dvorak’s Stabet Mater with the Prague Chamber Orchestra in the Perth Concert Hall.
In 2005, the festival choir presented a concert in the newly built BMW Edge at Federation Square in Melbourne, featuring the Howells Requiem, Standford Magnificat, Pärt Magnificat and a commissioned work Flesh to Stone by David Cassat, all conducted by Dr Richard Swann. The second concert in the festival was conducted by Jonathan Grieves-Smith in the Melbourne Town Hall, where Kodaly’s Missa Brevis and Bruckner’s Mass in E Minor were performed.
In 2006, the Intervarsity chorus presented two concerts in Adelaide. The first concert in the festival was a performance of Fanshawe’s African Sanctus at the Grainger studio, conducted by Timothy Sexton. The second concert was a performance of the Handel oratorio Israel in Egypt, conducted by Graham Abbott at Adelaide Festival Theatre with the Adelaide Art Orchestra.