We all know Pascal Herington from his performance as our tenor soloist in Ode to Joy, and we are pleased that he returns for our Easter Concert performance of the Mozart Requiem.

But Pascal has another passion.  He has always swum, cycled and run to keep fit and decided to put the three together and follow in the family footsteps of his brother as a thiathlete.  He runs for the Shepherd Centre, which supports the education of deaf children, and hence the outfit – “go flower power!!”.

He rates his biggest sporting achievement as completion of last year’s Port Macquarie Ironman in a respectable 11hours and 46 minutes – That’s a full marathon of 42.2km after you have already been going for 7 hours with a 3.8km swim and 180km bike ride.  Pascal was racing alongside local boy Tony Abbott and took some joy in overtaking him on bike circuit
<ed: Pascal now claims to have lapped Tony on the bike circuit, which is credible given Tony recorded a generous 14 hours for his ironman>

Pascal Herington

All this work takes a lot out of your body – Pascal lost around 5kg in fluids on the ironman.  At the Australian Long Course championships he fell off his bike and “opened up” his back and all down one side of his arm. Despite the pain he completed the course, spurred on by friends and family.  Pascal sees it as a test of your limits and a chance to learn what you are truly capable of when you put your mind to it.

He has brought the same courage and dedication to his music.  He was already 4 years into an accounting career when he decided to leave work and start singing full time.  Following the passion is paying off now that he’s studying in the opera school at the Sydney Conservatorium and getting an increasing number of solo engagements. We are sure Pascal’s career will go from strength to strength and we hope to see him at many more Manly Warringah Choir Concerts.

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But doesn’t all this sport clash with his musical ambitions? Pascal replies that “it’s a question of balance. Your body is your instrument and you must look after it.  When you are tired from exercising 3 hours a day you have to be so careful to look after your voice, and when you swim a lot your abdominals become tight and twitchy which interferes with singing.  So stretching and yoga are essential to loosen up.  But singing itself is also hard work, so strength and fitness are valuable assets.”

With all these outdoor pursuits Pascal is tempted by the Northern Beaches lifestyle, but he admits that he cannot lay claim to being a surfer – “not blessed with the genes that enable balance!”.  He has though recently moved a lot closer but is still on the “wrong side” of the spit bridge.  Lets hope that before long we will be able to claim him as one of our own.

Saturday April 16th – 7.30 pm Cardinal Cerretti Chapel

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Overture to the Magic Flute
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Requiem in D Minor
Sergei Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major – Soloist: Alexandra Loukianova

We are very fortunate that our soloists for the Mozart Requiem are unchanged from the wonderful line up for our last concert.  We welcome them back.

Click here for tickets or telephone 9451 0595 or 9977 4776

Manly Warringah Choir Concert Flyer –  How to get to Cardinal Cerretti Chapel

How do you arrange a group of 70-80 amateur singers to consistently present classical music concerts of high quality?

Of course there’s all the hard work over typically 14-15 rehearsals leading up to each concert.  We are fortunate that our conductor Carlos and accompanist Angela are both consummate professionals who draw the best out of us.  We also benefit from many talented musicians in our ranks, as we can see when willing and able pianists step in if Angela is unavoidably absent.  So there’s hard graft supported by professional leadership, but that’s just the start.

About this time we are already lining up soloists and orchestral musicians for our concert.   Recent vocalists have ranked in the top soloists at the Sydney Eisteddfod.  Our 2010 cellist was a finalist in the ABC young performer awards. Many of our orchestra play or have played with the Wollongong Symphony or Sydney Symphony orchestras   These are all professionals with busy schedules and we need to book them early and provide each with the concert music – another job for our committee and librarian.

The venue has to be booked a year in advance, particularly for our December concert, which also falls in peak wedding season.  So we aim to work out the concert schedule in the preceding September/October.  The choir practice CDs have been produced and are selling fast.  But there’s still concert flyers to produce, programmes to design & print, and advertising to be placed, as well as all the logistics for the night … supper, parking, ticket sales, the raffle, front of house organisation, flowers, stage management etc.  The accumulated knowledge for this is passed down though succession in the committee – our choir DNA.

We are grateful for the volunteer support both within and outside the choir, without whom this could not happen – many of these (our graphic designer and website manager for instance) are professional people giving freely of their time and resources.

But whilst we rely on this help, we are at our core professional.  With our venue, conductor, soloists and professional orchestra, each concert costs over $15,000 to stage, and that’s not counting the costs of all the rehearsals.

Our continual challenge is to break even financially, given that our ticket sales in no way cover the concert overhead.  The choir and friends of the choir make up much of the difference, and our sponsors also help to plug the gap.

That way we can maintain a secure future and continue to bring high-quality classical concerts to the Sydney northern beaches.