Counsel in Concert

On Tuesday 8 November 2011 a massed choir and orchestra of lawyers will perform a programme of operatic favourites at St Andrew's on the Terrace, Wellington. This is the third year running Counsel in Concert has presented a performance on this scale. Following the overflowing audience at the 2010 concert, this year there will be two performances (12.15 and 5.30). Entry is by donation. Proceeds from the concerts will go to the Child Cancer Foundation.

Counsel in Concert has grown out of the Crown Law music group and is based at Crown Law. The choir has been rehearsing weekly for this performance since the beginning of August and includes around 50 lawyers from throughout the Wellington region as well as law staff from Crown Law. The orchestra includes many talented lawyer-musicians and is augmented by members of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Vector Wellington Orchestra.

The exciting programme of opera choruses and arias includes the Anvil Chorus, Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves and excerpts from Bizet’s Carmen. The performance will be conducted by Owen Clarke.

Two well-known legal soprano soloists will be travelling to Wellington to perform in the event. Deborah Wai Kapohe finished a law degree in Sydney in 2009 and is currently a candidate for a PhD at the University of Otago Legal Issues Centre: www.deborahwaikapohe.com. Morag McDowell is an Auckland coroner and is also regularly engaged as a solo and ensemble singer throughout New Zealand. She is currently a Resident Artist for the NBR New Zealand Opera and understudied the role of Atalanta in the 2011 production of Xerxes.

The organisers of the concert are very grateful to the sponsors: Thomson Reuters, Crengle Shreves & Ratner, Lambton Chambers Barristers, Tripe Matthews & Feist, John Miller Law, Rachael Dewar Law, WCM Legal, Fyfe & Doherty, O'Regan Arndt Peters & Evans and Mary Jeffcoat.