Cardiff University Chamber Choir tours Malaysia
Peter Leech, conductor of Cardiff University Chamber Choir, gives an overview of the Chamber Choir’s visit to Malaysia in the summer of 2023.
In summer 2023 Cardiff University Chamber Choir undertook a concert tour of Malaysia, performing at Xiamen University Malaysia, Sunway University, UCSI Malaysia and Christ Church Melaka. This was the choir’s second tour in four years, packed with exciting concert and extra-curricular experiences which both singers and staff will remember for many years to come.
We were thrilled to be performing in some of the largest and most prestigious university concert halls in South-East Asia, especially at XUM (where an audience of 500 gave us a standing ovation, and where we were treated to virtuoso Erhu and Chinese Dance performances) and UCSI, where we shared the concert platform with two of UCSI’s fine choral ensembles, and whose media students created a delightful short video compilation.
Our Sunway University lunchtime concert involved a very special collaboration with the university vocal ensemble and their conductor Lai Suk Yin, who led all of us in the performance of a madrigal. Our concert there made a very powerful impression on many of the young children in the audience.
We were especially proud to have taken a diverse list of choral repertory with us, including three works by the Welsh composer Morfydd Owen, sacred music by the Afro-Brazilian composed José Mauricio Garcia, Olivia Sparkhall, Imogen Holst (and other women composers in Multitude of Voyces Volume 1), as well as Johanna Kinkel and William Byrd, the latter marking 400 years since his death in 1623.
Our choice of repertory was particularly significant since the XUM event was the first official choral concert at that university. To be showcasing such a varied and inclusive programme at a landmark occasion was a great honour indeed.
Our last concert of the tour at historic Christ Church Melaka, founded in 1753, featured an expanded programme with Marianna Martines’s Miserere and Giovanni Battista Casali’s four-part Ave Maria. It was particularly poignant to be singing Byrd (a close friend of many English Jesuits) at Christ Church, situated just a few hundred yards from St Paul’s church, built in 1521, where the body of St Francis Xavier (one of the founders of the Jesuits) lay for a month in 1553 before being taken to Goa.
The rich, varied multicultural history of Melaka, ranging from traditional music and dance to delicious street food, museums, and historic homes of merchant travellers, not to mention the extremely large monitor lizards sunning themselves on the steps of riverside cafes, made a deep impression on all of us.
Outside our performing activity, we visited many local and important cultural sites, including the Batu Caves (Gombak), Putra Mosque (Putrajaya), National Museum of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Istan Negara (Royal Palace) and Petronas Towers (Kuala Lumpur).
Special thanks to Elin Jones (Performance and Engagement Executive Officer) for organising so many wonderful activities, Dr Nicholas Jones (Head of the School of Music) and Becca Ding (International Administrative Assistant), whose ambassadorial talents shone throughout the whole time we were in Malaysia.
I could not have wished for a better staff and student team with which to have worked.
The School of Music would like to thank Taith and Global Opportunities for making Cardiff University Chamber Choir’s trip to Malaysia possible.