There seemed to be something wrong, perhaps even blasphemous about going to school on a Saturday night. Walking into our school auditorium, I instinctively placed my hand against my neck, checking for my tie. I paid for my ticket and went in, hoping to see the hall somehow miraculously changed into a grand musical venue, with golden chandeliers and box office seats. But alas, it was the same old hall, just like I had left it on Friday. Oh, except for the Orchestra and the full choir that was assembling ready to begin with the nights program.
I sat down and waited in my assigned plastic seat. It was a cold night, and the auditorium seemed to magnify the chill from the outside. It is only when you are there out of your own free will that you can appreciate how dull the school facility really is. Each time I turned, my seat made a squeaking sound not unlike a rackety old boat floating on the harbour. In fact, the murmur of conversation was drowned out by the discussion that the chairs were enjoying . But once the first measure was played, there was absolutely no noise out of any chair.
The choir transformed the hall into something wonderful. It was as if the basses were heating the room up, while the top register of the sopranos symbolised the gleam of the golden chandelier that seemed to be there all of a sudden. Meanwhile the tenors and altos went around the room, painting the walls and the ceilings with varying shades of blues, reds, blacks and greens. No one dared make a sound, because we all knew that even the slightest disturbance could make this audio apparition go away, and leave us in the same boring space were we started.
The night was strictly Mozart only. There was a fine imposed on anybody that mention Beethoven, and immediate expulsion for the word Romantic. It was a nicely balanced program, starting with Ave Verum Corpus. After showing us what it was capable of, the choir accompanied Heather Lee ( Soprano, who received first prize in the Australian Aria competition in 1995) in the famous Laudate Dominum, from Vesparea de confessore. There was a piano concerto ( no. 24, in C minor), performed by Karen Smithies, and then " la piecè de resistance", the Requiem Mass.
Although the choir and the orchestra were amateur ensembles, they did not show it, and they played with taste and with a high degree of musicality. I must admit that I was sceptical about the performance before it began, after all, Mozart always looks easy on paper, but it is hard to turn the ink on the page into the music that it represents. I thought that this little Central Coast community would have problems in assembling a group of musicians with not only the skill, but the musical knowledge to perform this difficult program. I was pleasantly surprised to find that you can listen to good quality music right here on the coast.
At the end of the performance, people assembled in the foyer of the auditorium. Everyone knew everyone! There was no more than fifty people all together, and they were the same faces that pop up in every musical occasion on the Coast. They all stood around, drinking Devonshire tea and talking about the soloists, trying to outdo each other in musical observations and obscure historical facts. I left as quickly as possible. I was not interested in hearing the details of the Mozart/Sussmayer authenticity of the requiem again. Nor was I interested in hearing about Karen Smithies ( the piano soloist) life story on the coast. Having heard what I think is arguably the best of Mozart's secular music, all I wanted to do was lie down in my bed and replay every note over, and over , and over.