Perth Voice Interactive

The young men stride down an inner-city alley, graffiti and attitude giving their promo shot a gritty edginess.

With their hipster facial hair and casual clothes, they could be the latest indi hotshots, except for one thing; in Andrew O’Connor’s case at least he never forgets he was once a school nerd.

Oh, and then there’s the fact their groupies are mostly in their sixties.

Welcome to the suddenly funky world of chorale music.

‘It’s the ‘Glee effect’,” O’Connor tells the Voice.

Since the US TV show about a high school choir became an unlikely global hit, chorale singing has gone from being a refuge for the socially awkward to overtaking The Beatles and Elvis Presley in top-100 hits.

Glee releases have racked up more than 36 million singles sales alone while the genre’s bona fide sex symbol, American composer Eric Whitacre, has broken new ground with his “virtual choir” projects which attract millions of hits on YouTube.

The flow-on has well and truly reached Perth, with O’Connor claiming the local scene is being noticed around the country. Earlier this year Naya Chorale was invited to perform at Carnegie Hall based on a promo video—they hadn’t even performed publicly.

And O’Connor’s choir The Giovanni Consort has recently finished a collaboration with Carl Crossin, whose Adelaide Chamber Singers were, in July in Wales, crowned Choir of the World..

Three of O’Connor’s Consort compadres, Christophe Karas, Tim McNamara and David Penco, also sing with the St George’s Cathedral Choir as well as picking up various other gigs and teaching roles.

O’Connor says the four Northbridge friends will rack up an impressive 42 performances between October and December because of the demand for chorale music.

There’s a huge difference between Glee’s show tunes and the Giovanni Consort’s more traditional fare, but O’Connor says he enjoys the interplay between the young fans demanding new and contemporary compositions and their diehard fans, who he says are very well educated about the music.

The Giovanni Consort has something for everyone coming up; at 7.30pm on Wednesday December 11 they’ll be singing 17th century German composer Heinrich Schutz’s Christmas Story at the Trinity College Chapel in East Perth, while next year they’ll play the Australian premiere of American composer Joby Talbot’s The Path of Miracles. As well as his chorale achievements, Talbot is also renowned for his work with punk band The White Stripes.

Putting on their cathedral choir hats, the four will also perform Mozart’s sublime Requiem (featuring local superstars Sara Macliver and Fiona Campbell) and Great Mass in C Minor on December 3 at 7.30pm at the Perth concert hall.

Log onto http://www.giovanniconsort.com or http://www.perthcathedral.org for more details.

by STEVE GRANT