About Us
The Mid-Canterbury Summer Singing School was started in 2000 by Ashburton Singing Tutor Jo Castelow as a vehicle for the talented singers who lived in the Mid-Canterbury area. It quickly grew to encompass students from Christchurch, Timaru and further a field. It has become an iconic course that hundreds of singers have now passed through and is a favourite on the musical calendar in Ashburton.
The Mid-Canterbury Summer Singing School is a musical theatre course that is divided into two sections junior and seniors. They come to The Ashburton Trust Event Centre ( Mid-Canterbury’s state of the art theatre) to rehearse and perform three concerts for the public at the end of the week. They sing and dance their way through five days of rehearsals, Monday-Tuesday singing rehearsals, Wednesday-Thursday movement and dance rehearsals, Friday tech rehearsals all day. The juniors range from 9 years of age up to Year 8. The jump from juniors to seniors means that we feel students are not ready for the senior course until they have had a year at Secondary School. The senior course is from those in Year 9 the school year before the January up to 22 years of age. Many students return from tertiary level courses to attend this section such is the high level of performance skills in this group.
Learning and having heaps of fun in the process is the name of the game here. A pressure cooker little course that has seen many students return for 9 years in a row and make lifetime friendships. The music is varied and exposes the students to as wide a range as possible, enriching their musical knowledge and taking them and the audience on many musical journeys.
Then the music is transformed by wonderful acting, movement and dancing, bringing the stories to life. These concerts have a very professional technical element to them and the concerts have a large following. Students provide their own costuming and the outfits are designed to be reasonably easy to source. The music is available in early December and students are able to download the harmony tracks to learn from our new website. They will have a password to access this. Seniors students will sing in a minimum of 4-part harmony so it is vital that they indicate their parts correctly (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass). The juniors sing in 2-part harmony as we feel this is very important for their development. We also provide a hand band and a logo bag on the first day of rehearsals so the students are easily identified by the Ashburton Trust Event Team, tutors and helpers. Hand bands must be worn at all times during the course.
ATCL | LTCL | NZIRMT
Jo Castelow
Jo Castelow is an Ashburton Singing tutor with over 30 years experience, working and performing in the Canterbury District. She has tutored in a large number of schools across the district, been HOD of Music at Mt Hutt College, Head of Vocals at Christchurch School of Music and has tutored hundreds of students from her private studio in Ashburton.
Since 2011 Jo has worked as a Musical Director for Variety Theatre Ashburton (her latest being the highly successful “Sister Act” in 2019), Sunshine Coast Youth Theatre in Noosa, South Canterbury Drama League, Mid-Canterbury Children’s Theatre and the Methven Choral Society. It is fair to say that Musical Theatre is her passion!
As a young singer Jo spent four years in the New Zealand National Youth Choir which lead her onto using the skills learnt as a choral conductor. She has had many choirs in various locations and Jo currently has a new teenage group she is working with called Positive Sounz, who made their debut at the sell out RocknPop2020 for the Ashburton Trust Event Centre of which Jo was Musical Director and Producer for.
Jo is grateful to live in such a supportive community and be able to share her knowledge and passion for musical theatre with singers.
Greta Casey- Solly
Raised up the road in Methven, Greta Casey-Solly got her first taste of Musical Theatre within MCSSS here in Ashburton. From there, Greta made her way over to Sydney to complete her final year of high school at Brent Street Academy, followed by a Diploma of Musical Theatre in Melbourne and then finally returning home in 2015, where she completed a Bachelor of Performing arts at NASDA.
Most recently Greta completed her Master of Arts in Creative Writing for Screen and Theatre at the IIML, Victoria University in Wellington ’20 finally writing her musical, FRANK.
Greta has spent the last two years working with Witch Musical Theatre in Wellington on projects such as Sweeney Todd, ROXY and The July Project in the capacity of Actor, Director and Choreographer.
Currently, shadow directing for RENT at The Court Theatre, Greta is hoping to move into a space of Directing and Choreographing professionally within Aotearoa.
Greta is looking forward to returning to Ashburton to work alongside Jo Castelow and the cast of Mid-Canterbury's Summer Singing School ’23.
Register Here →
Course dates - 8th to 13th January 2024
