Three Canterbury choirs have staked their claim in the 2026 Big Sing Choir competition.
The Big Sing Finale opened with 18 performances on Thursday at the Christchurch Town Hall.
Big Sing is New Zealand's largest choral festival, running for more than 35 years. It involves secondary school choirs from all around the nation.
Ngā Manu Tioriori from St Andrews College, Bel Canto from Burnside High School, and Resolutions from Rangi Ruru Girls’ School, all had the chance to show off their talents at Thursday's showcases.
Ngā Manu Tioriori conductor Jared Corbett said he was thrilled with the way his choir had performed.
“It feels really good to be honest, a relief definitely, because it's an amazing thing but definitely a stressful performance.
“This is my third year with the senior choir at Saint Andrews and I knew that I always wanted to strive for this, for them, to get through to the finals. It has been a long couple of years of hard work for them and trying to get them to understand what it means to be a really good choir.”
Corbett said his choir arrangement was picked primarily with the students in mind.
To compete in Big Sing, choirs must include a New Zealand or Pasifika composition or arrangement, a classical piece, and a third piece that is open choice.
“We started with House of the Rising Sun by Bob Chilcott. It's sort of a Jazzy arrangement that I thought the kids would really respond to just because they sort of come from more of a pop musical theater contemporary background, and it's got piano so it's a nice way to start."
The second song was a German piece called Die Nachtigall about the Nightingale, which Corbett said was "absolutely out of their comfort zone".
"The third piece was our New Zealand composition called the Martha Goose Suite. It's a piece all about nursery rhymes, sort of Roald Dahl nursery rhymes put to music.”
Corbett said the pieces were helping Ngā Manu Tioriori learn the building blocks of what it meant to be an extraordinary choir.
“I’m really proud of them. It’s been really hard to get South Island boys to be part of the finale. Since 2018 there's been no solely boys' choirs or choirs with boys in it. So our boys, even though they're low in number, they're the first ones in almost ten years to be singing at finale.”
Event manager Emma Billings said Big Sing provided high school students with a unique chance to demonstrate their abilities.
“It’s a wonderful performance opportunity for thousands and thousands of high school children around New Zealand. This year we had just over 9000 at the regionals.
"It allows them to sing choral music of all different genres from all different eras; it’s a festival as well as a competition.”
Billings said the Christchurch Town Hall, and Christchurch in general, was a fantastic place to have the competition.
