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For the twelve months concluding in June 2008, we were, with the assistance of the Department of Planning and Community Development, able to contract six remarkable people to spread and support group music-making around Victoria. They were:
While these folk are no longer under contract to CMV, they remain deeply committed to the devlopment of group music-making in their areas. They are closely involved with the independent networks that have emerged as a result of their efforts, and can assist newcomers to make useful connections. You'll find their contacts under their individual entries.
There are hundreds of dedicated individuals all across Victoria busy helping the people around them to make music together. Many of them we know, many we don't. Many know and use our services, many don't know CMV exists.
A key function of CMV is to discover, honour, engage with and support these individuals and networks. Perhaps the most significant outcome of the work of CMV Catalysts has been the development of these independent regional groupings of community music activists with the passion and expertise to imagine and express a future for group music-making in their region.
Concentrates on recruiting and training volunteers.
Concentrates on producing and distributing Shout! and e-SHOUT, bookkeeping, keeping the database up-to-date, responding to enquiries from the public, the network and CMV team members, and administering CMV events.
Sing It! is our quarterly periodical through which the stories of group singing across Victoria are told.
The eleven members (elected at the AGM in May 2009) meet every two months (usually at Ross House). The Board takes ultimate responsibility for the direction of CMV.
Carol Dore is doing a PhD in the School of Social Work and Social Policy at La Trobe University, Bendigo. Her research topic is community singing. She is exploring the lived experience of community singing; how people experience it, what they draw from this and how they feel it has affected them. She is interested to know whether singers and leaders believe that joining with others in singing is different to getting together for other activities such as sports, or other arts and cultural activities, and if so, how/why it is different. She will be using interviews and focus groups with singers and leaders to gather this information in order to produce new understandings of the experience. Singing with others is health-enhancing, as well as a way for people to be engaged as part of a community, and she feels there is a great opportunity for social workers to be implementing group and community singing as part of their work with individuals, groups and communities. There are social workers using singing in their practice, but this is not reflected in the social work literature. Therefore, her research will also involve developing a model of practice for social workers and organisations to use community singing in their work.
Lyndal is a singer and musician from Gippsland, now resident in Melbourne, with 15 years experience in creating environments in which people feel relaxed, and able to sing, play and create. In Traralgon, she ran Vocal Noshes as well as singers' sessions for the Gippsland Acoustic Music Club (of which she was a founding member). She directs the Gippsland a Cappella Festival and currently leads two sing-for fun groups in Melbourne. Professionally trained as a music teacher and a veteran of varied folk ensembles, Lyndal has a keen understanding of the power of music to transform lives and communities.
Jane has a lifetime of experience of getting people to make music together. In the early 1980's she first experienced Frankie Armstrong's approach to freeing up the natural voice and aural learning and has been leading singing sessions and voice workshops along these lines ever since, becoming a relentless initiator of community singing and instrumental projects aimed at enabling people with little or no experience to sing and play together. She is also an experienced trainer and facilitator of groups and an expert event organiser. Jane currently plays sax with Melbourne street band - Havana Palava - and sings and plays mandolin with bluegrass trio The Tipsy Hicks and with country band the Cascades. She has been a member of CMV's board of management since 2002.
Carol is our Resident Researcher. Her personal involvement with singing began in the mid 1990's in Bendigo, Central Victoria. Considering herself a 'non-singer', she had decided to start to learn about singing by having a few singing lessons with a friend. This led to her joining the Central Victorian Women's Choir (Women of Note) as a founding member, and later, small community singing groups Mamas' Chocolate Box and Three Abreast, as well as a couple of stints in The Melbourne Millenium Chorus. She is a member of the Committee of Management for the Gorgeous Voices Festival that takes place in Bendigo. She doesn't read music or play an instrument, but singing has allowed her to become musical, and to share and make music with others - a life-enhancing development.
Chris has been a singer, guitarist and songwriter for 25 years. Although a city dweller now, for most of her life she has lived in small country towns throughout Victoria. She has written songs for Art and Working Life Projects with workers and Trade Unions in the La Trobe Valley, Victoria. She has been artist in residence for drama programs in secondary schools and has composed songs for the Victorian Aids Council, Victorian Government employment programs and many choirs. Chris has recorded 5 albums of her songs winning a national song writing competition. She now works as an Alexander Technique teacher specialising in working with singers and instrumentalists. She also teaches singing and guitar. Chris is passionately committed to the notion that everyone is born to sing. She leads a small singing group "just for fun" in Northcote.
Belinda is a Melbourne-based singer, pianist, flautist, music teacher, choir leader, composer, and arranger. A musician her whole life, she is particularly passionate about sharing the joys of music-making with others, and is an ardent believer in the power of music to bring joy and vitality into peoples' lives. She currently leads Musique Unique, a community choir based in Greensborough, 2 sing-for-fun groups in Carnegie and Murrumbeena, and a chorus of children and parents at her kids' playgroup!
Emily is a singer, singing teacher, choir leader and group singing facilitator. In 1999 she graduated from LaTrobe University with a Bachelor of Music. She sings with the successful Australian folk band Milk. The band have released five CDs, toured extensively and performed at many folk festivals. She leads two Melbourne community choirs The Rogues' Choir in Brunswick, formerly the Brunswick Neighbourhood Choir, and The Errol's Angels of North Melbourne. These groups meet to share a love of singing, no experience is needed, and they sing a wide range of a cappella music. She also works with groups at the Brunswick and Carlton Neighbourhood Houses, Club Wild and for The Melbourne Mental Health Music Network. These groups offer access to people who have a wide range of abilities, ages, and experience. Emily's philosophy is to promote wellbeing through voice work and singing.
John was brought up singing with his large family, studied classical singing, sang with the state opera chorus and solo with smaller companies, participated in and led various a cappella groups, taught voice-based performance projects with young people at TAFE and Victoria University, and taught voice work and singing to all ages from primary school children through to seniors. Along the way he's become adept at overtone chanting. His honours thesis in '01 was on the extended range of the human voice. He doesn't claim to be an expert instrumentalist but has familiar relations with the piano, french horn, guitar and drums. With his partner, Helen Sharp, John set up the Body Voice Centre in Footscray in 1994. He is a fully qualified practitioner of Middendorf Breathwork and has completed his PhD on this subject. He mentors the Multicultural Choir in Footscray.
Richard has been teaching for 20 years in the UK and the USA; he trained as an actor and singer in England and with 'Project Voice' in Wales, he sang with various choirs including, 'Voices from the Vacant Lot', has taught at NIDA, the VCA, the Northern Rivers Conservatorium and at Summersong music camps. He has sung in various venues, from the red light district of Amsterdam to La Mama in New York. For three years he sang bass in the vocal quartet 'Velvet Groove,' and for 15 years has been running courses titled 'Singing for Fun, Singing with Feeling.' He brings a special know-how developed from working as a theatre director; he has directed and arranged vocals for many plays and musicals and still wishes he could play piano.
Has been singing since the age of 4 and professionally since 18 in cabaret theatre, acoustic bands and duos, show bands, lounge bands and vocal groups. She has sung both nationally and through Mediterranean Europe. In '01 she recorded an album of original music and was a finalist in the Music Oz Songwriting Competition. Her passion and adventure lies in community building through song and she leads five vivacious community singing groups each week. She has a BA (Hons) majoring in Journalism and Psychology, Cert IV in Workplace Training, Grade 7 Modern Singing, Grade 4 Theory and has studied Group Facilitation at Swinburne University.
Elizabeth (BSc, BSW, GradDipMus) has spent her working life helping people find their voice. Initially this was as a social worker, but a stint at Prahran mission leading music with people with a mental illness showed her the power of singing and music to unite people and to create an instant sense of community. She developed a business teaching adults to sing with a special focus on people who couldn't sing. A move to Warrnambool led to a stint as a community musician creating music with children and adults with a wide range of special needs and with a diverse collection of community groups. After many years of inspiring people to sing regardless of their experience, a trip to Ireland, inspired a way to make instrumental music equally accessible. An Orchestra For Everyone combining experienced and inexperienced musician is now one of her current projects that unites people from all sections of the community in the common cause of creating music.
Growing up, Betty was always singing. After graduating in social work in the early 70s she spent the next 30 years working in various organisations to "Save the World". In the 90s, she decided to pursue her long held love of music. After undertaking the Music Logic and Kindermusik teacher trainings, she set up as a freelance teacher. By the time the twenty first century started rolling she had found a way to combine her commitment to making a difference in the community with her love of music. First it was organising a Peace Concert, then becoming active in the local Arts Council and leading singing groups. These experiences have led to an opportunity to take her love of community music making into the wider community as one of CMV's Regional Community Music Making Catalysts.
Heather has been teaching music for over thirty years, working with babies, preschool children, primary kids, in secondary schools and universities, and with teachers and other adults. Workshops have included lots of multi-age community music sessions, and she was long-term president of Parents for Music: a Family Music Association. Many workshop tours of Australia and New Zealand and presentations at international conferences also form her experience. She has been closely involved with the Orff and Kodaly music education groups since the late seventies when she studied in Hungary and Austria for a year. In recent years she lived and taught in Japan, and currently teaches at a Melbourne primary school as well as doing other freelance work. An occasional violinist, she feels that singing and recorder-playing are important both in schools and the broader community, and she is an energetic advocate for the marimba movement. Involving both children and adults in music-making is her passion.
Paula worked as a speech pathologist for nearly thirty years in public, private and university settings. A particular interest was the area of voice and professional voice users. Paula has sung in various amateur choirs over the years, and has developed a keen interest in the health and wellness aspects of singing. In 2006 Paula formed The SoufflŽ Sisters Community Choir incorporating her skills as a manager, and engaging an experienced choir leader as well as a talented accompanist to jointly run the group. This group is open to all women who share a love of singing in a community setting. Highlights have included performing at the Festival of Voices in 2008 and 2009 and jointly, with Emily Hayes, organizing the recent Bushfire Benefit Concert at the Clocktower Centre in Moonee Ponds. Paula is looking forward to her role as a member of the 2009 Board of CMV.
Karen was classically trained as a young singer and has had a go at performing with rock, folk and jazz outfits as well as in music theatre and with acappella groups Paterson's Curse and MisBehavin'. Her formal qualifications are in education and she has lots of experience in the health, social welfare and community cultural development sectors. She has led school choirs, youth productions and community singing sessions, has used singing as a tool in all her professional work and she now enjoys directing The Wild Choir through a program for people with disabilities. As project manager at Murray Arts based in Albury/Wodonga, Karen relishes the opportunity to spread the joy of music-making that promotes wellbeing through community activities and events.
Brian 'Strat' Strating has been involved in music making and music education for more than two and a half decades. He has performed in the bands Boola Boola, The Great Southern Band and more recently Grand Junction and the festival street band Havana Palava at various festivals and venues here and overseas. Strat believes that music making is a basic human need and one of the foundation stones of learning and he is pleased to be a part of an organisation such as CMV that has the capacity to develop this at a community level. Having spent most of his life in regional Victoria he has a great understanding of non urban cultural development and community.
Fay is a singer by trade and a passionate advocate for group singing. She's doing her bit to help turn Australia into a singing culture. One happy camper reckons her singing workshops are 'energising and generous and enable you to trust the voice you have'. Fay founded Vocal Nosh in Central Victoria where people get together regularly to sing and eat good food in friendly company. She does big sings and small sings with equal enjoyment and loves to sing with children (for fun). She's written dozens of songs and made lots of CDs.
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