Spirit Of Christmas

Carols and community singing have been part of the Australian Christmas tradition for years: Melbourne has Carols by Candlelight, Sydney has Carols in the Domain, whilst Brisbane has Spirit of Christmas, which is now in its 35^th year. QPAC’s annual confection of carols and seasonal songs with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra is always a joyous celebration and this year was no exception.

It’s no mean feat co-ordinating a choir of over two-hundred, an orchestra of fifty-two, a grand organ and soloists but director Sean Mee, who’s done this thing many times before, deserves multiple kudos for the production, which this year seemed to have more polish than usual. The synchonisation of the hand and arm movements of the choir in the balconies with the performers on-stage was perfect and with Ben Hughes’ inventive light display, it elevated the standard of the production.

In their first appearance at Spirit of Christmas, musical theatre stars Lucy Durack and Josh Piterman were obvious audience pleasers, she, dressed in a Cinderella ball-gown, with a wistful “The Christmas Song” and a slightly rockin’ “All I Want For Christmas Is You”, and he with a well-sung swinging “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and an Italian version of “O Holy Night”.

Jerrod Smith’s “Feliz Navidad” added some Latin heat to the program, especially when the choir joined in, and Hannah Bennett nicely extended the Christmas message with “Silver Bells”.

Highlight of the vocals, however, was tenor Jaewoo Kim’s ringing “The Holy City”. All the bells and whistles were present when the orchestra and organ attacked Saint Saens “Symphony No 3 for Organ” in a mind-blowing performance, whilst Durack, Piterman, Bennett and Smith closed the concert with a spine-tingling “Just in Time For Christmas”.

Sofia Formica was a pleasant host and as usual the kids in the audience had a ball when they came up on stage in their reindeer antlers and sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”.

After 35 years the spirit in the Spirit of Christmas is very much alive and well at QPAC!

Peter Pinne