Supertonic presents Requiem

Wellington Cathedral of St Paul, 2 Hill Street, Thorndon, Wellington

Saturday 17 May 2025, 7.30pm

After an action-packed 10th anniversary year in 2024, Supertonic choir of Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington is back to bring you one of the greats.

On Saturday 17 May, Supertonic will present Requiem, with the incomparable Requiem in D Minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as the centrepiece. Performed in the rich acoustic of Wellington Cathedral with a small orchestra, this performance of Mozart’s Requiem will include guest soloist Carleen Ebbs.

The timeless Requiem has made appearances across the entertainment spectrum - in films, video games, advertising and even reality television. As featured in Bioshock Infinite, the Lacrimosa made an appearance at our 2023 pop-culture concert High Score. Whether or not you have attended a performance, it’s more than likely that you will have heard some of it before.

A requiem is a mass for the souls of the dead; the text asks God to accept their souls into heaven. Although commissioned to write this requiem for the wife of a patron, it is believed that by the time he reached his final days of life, Mozart believed he was writing this mass for his own funeral. It was ultimately completed by others, as he did not finish writing it before his untimely death at just 35 years of age on 5 December 1791.

To complement the requiem, the first half of the concert will focus on the duality of life and death and contrasts in nature with a selection of contemporary works. Life by Jacob Narverud is set to the text of Barter by 20th-century poet Sara Teasdale. With a cascading introduction this unaccompanied SATB piece includes a calming, rhythmic call and response between the upper and lower voices. Tundra by Ola Gjeilo is a beautiful ode to the relationship between flat, unmoving and calm landscapes and the clouds that are in constant motion above them.

With Requiem, Supertonic hopes to bring the timeless mass to both dedicated fans and those who are curious about connecting to classical music through the monumental works of composers like Mozart.