6, 13 & 14 December 2003 - Sydney and Port Macquarie

"Glad Tidings” was held at the Uniting Church in Port Macquarie with performances at 2pm on Saturday 13 Dec and 2pm on Sunday 14 Dec 2003.

Performances of "Glad Tidings” were also given the week before in Sydney, on Saturday 6 December - at St Vincent’s Catholic Church Ashfield at 2pm, and at All Saints Anglican Church Hunters Hill at 8pm.

As well as Christmas favourites from the main choir, “Glad Tidings” featured John Rutter’s “Dancing Day” performed by Cantabile and accompanied by guest artist Genevieve Lang, on harp.

John Rutter is a brilliant choral composer, and “Dancing Day” is a favourite piece amongst female groups as it is challenging, full of variety and musically very exciting. Its reworking of traditional Christmas carols into a single flowing work for voice and harp is quite brilliant and will no doubt be considered a classic in years to come.

Genevieve Lang is a nationally acclaimed harpist and Guest Principal Harpist with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. She has also appeared with the Sydney and West Australian Symphonies as well as the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra. The harp is one of the most difficult of instruments, so this was a wonderful opportunity to hear it played by one of Australia’s best exponents. This was her second collaboration with the Hastings Choristers and Cantabile and they enjoyed the reunion enormously.