Creativity Australia News · Page 12 · Creativity Australia
Creativity Australia logo Menu

Creativity Australia News

With One BIG Wow!


Thanks to Peter Casamento for the photo.

The sound of over 300 singers echoing throughout the Melbourne Town Hall is not one that will be soon forgotten! 800 people gathered on Sunday, December 2nd, to fill the Town Hall and experience the magic of the With One Voice choirs.

With a program with everything from Fever to Africa, there was truly a song for everyone, and it became impossible for the audience to resist simply sitting and watching – they were standing and clapping, with some even singing along!

Aside from bringing together all 13 of our Melbourne choirs, it was an extra special day for Sydney Sings who made their interstate debut – many of whom stepped off the train and onto the stage!

Huge congratulations to all who sang – you were brilliant. Thank you to all who came and supported their friends and family, we hope you walked away with a smile.

Keep an eye out for photos and videos – but for now, why not check out some of the photos that our singers have uploaded to Facebook?

Barwon Health Relax With Geelong Sings

Chris Scanlon, Mental Health Promotion Officer at Barwon Health took the time to chat about Geelong  Sings and Barwon Health!

When you saw the last choir performance at Barwon Health, what were some of your impressions?
Twenty members of the Geelong Sings choir did a recent lunchtime performance at the Geelong Hospital cafeteria during Mental Health Week (7th – 13th October 2012).

The “Relax in the Café” event was part of the Barwon Mental Health Week program and provided staff with an opportunity to relax, refresh and be entertained during their lunch-time break. The choir included a strong contingent of Barwon Health employees: with participation from a broad range of areas across the organisation.

The performance was well received: with an appreciative and enthusiastic audience. Feedback indicated that staff were impressed with both the quality and calibre of the choir. People found the singing soothing and harmonious. Staff on the level immediately above the cafeteria commented that patients enquired about the singing and found it “very
calming and relaxing”.

Other comments received included: “you could see the happiness on the faces of the choir members” and “Don’t they sing so well together – there must be something in it!”

Both Cafeteria staff and Food Services management are keen to invite the choir back for future events.

In your opinion, what are some of the mental health benefits that can be gained from singing in the choir?
There are evident health benefits to singing including improved breathing, an improved sense of wellbeing and relaxation, greater social connectedness and the value of teamwork and achievement.

What is a direct benefit to your organisation in having members of your staff join the Geelong Sings community choir?
From an organisational perspective participation in community initatives will lead to a healthier workforce, which will impact positively on motivation and worker satisfaction.

Barwon Health encourages further staff members to join the choir and is providing subsidies for membership. The choir practices on a weekly basis: Mondays 5.30pm – 6.45pm at the Deakin University Waterfront Campus.

Thank you again for your time, Chris – we’ll see you at choir soon!

Five Fun Facts About The With One BIG Voice Concert

There are only 25 days left until December 2nd – which marks the third ever With One BIG Voice concert!  This year’s concert will be the biggest one yet, and even sees the Sydney Sings choir making their interstate debut.

Whilst we count down until December 2nd, here are a five With One BIG Voice facts to tide you over!

Did you know…

  1. In 2011, the most tickets sold by a member was 18 tickets!  Will we break that record this year?
  2. A video of all the choirs performing Toto’s ‘Africa’ has received over 14,000 views on Youtube – watch it here
  3. The With One BIG Voice concert will take place in the same venue where Federation was debated, where Nellie Melba debuted and where the Beatles greeted their adoring fans!
  4. There will be over 400 singers performing this year – which would fill a Boeing 747 airplane
  5. The capacity of the Melbourne Town Hall is 800 people.

Have you bought your tickets yet?  Click here to buy yours today! 

And click here to download a media release.

Diversity is a Big Part of Who We Are – Liz Lipski on St Kilda Sings

Do you sing in the shower? Or was the school choir the last time you opened your mouth in song? Well, guess what? It doesn’t matter. If you like to sing, come along to St Kilda Sings choir nights, at 12 Chapel Street, St Kilda. You do not have to have a trained voice!

We meet on Monday evenings from 6.15pm to 7.30pm, have a sing, then this is followed by a scrumptious supper. And at the end of every term, we have an informal soiree for friends and family, followed by an even better supper! We also perform at events in St Kilda like the Homeless Memorial.

Currently, we are practicing for a massive end-of-year concert to be held in the Melbourne Town Hall. Some of the songs we’re rehearsing include: Let the River Run, Africa (Toto), We are Australian, Imagine, Siyahamba (African) and some of the songs we’ve sung this year include El Ritmo de la Noce, Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel, Inanay (Indigenous) and Tears in Heaven to name a few.

Our members come from all walks of life. There are students, pharmacists, a youth worker, a yoga teacher, an ESL teacher, retirees—you name it. Diversity is a big part of who we are. Here’s some of what our members have said about being part of St Kilda Sings:

‘The music (we sing) stays with me all week!’

‘I love the complex harmonies…they sound magical.’

‘(I love) the people who are so generous with their voices and with their spirits.’

‘Singing makes me feel very grounded. I also enjoy the social aspects, including the tea and snacks.’

‘I love singing in such a supportive environment.’

Our conductor this year is Marianne Black, who is a born teacher, and who only gives us as much as we can handle. Her musical knowledge and experience are very impressive, so we know we are in excellent hands.

Come along! You’ll enjoy it!

Written by Liz Lipski, member of St Kilda Sings.

Pozible – Get Rewarded In More Ways Than One!

Get discounted With One BIG Voice concert tickets and some awesome rewards through our Pozible campaign! Click here to see how you can get involved!

Pozible is an online crowd funding platform that allows individuals to help fund creative projects and ideas, making great things possible.

Hurry – time is running out to get involved! Click here to help us reach our target and contribute to the With One BIG Voice concert – if we don’t reach our target, then we will receive none of the pledges made, and you miss out on discounted tickets!

Creative Universe Gala Dinner: Who Will You See There?

As part of the Creative Innovation Conference which features over 40 world class Australian and international keynote speakers, leaders, artists and thinkers, Creative Universe will be hosting a Gala Dinner.  We would like to invite all of Creativity Australia’s partners, members and supporters to book a table and be part of this very special evening.

The Gala Dinner will take place at the Sofitel Melbourne on Collins Grand Ballroom, and the fine food and wine will be complemented by outstanding entertainment; including Creativity Australia’s own Heidelberg and Melbourne Sings choirs, sensational Australian group Pot-Pourri (recently named Australian Event Entertainers of the Year) and brilliant pianist Stefan Cassomenos.

Aside from enjoying a spectacular evening, there will be chance to rub shoulders with a number of the Ci2012 keynote speakers, who will be attending the event as guests and hosting tables.  Imagine sharing a fantastic dinner with Baroness Susan Greenfield (UK), or having a drink with Google CTO Michael T. Jones (USA)!

The dinner will support Creativity Australia’s With One Voice program – supporting the running of our 13 choirs across Victoria, 1 in Sydney and 1 in Canberra.  To help us sustain and continue to grow the With One Voice choirs, join us at the Gala Dinner and feast your eyes on the marvellous entertainment, the fabulous food and the feeling of knowing you are a part of something great – when many diverse voices come together as “one voice” on a regular basis the outcomes are transformational!

Thursday 29th November
7.00 – 11.00pm
Sofitel Melbourne on Collins, Grand Ballroom
25 Collins Street, Melbourne

Individual tickets are $250 each (incl. a $150 tax-deductible donation) and Corporate Tables of 10 are $5,000 (incl. a $4000 tax-deductible donation)

Click here to book your tickets!

Song-Speak: Singing Your Way Back To Speaking

Imagine having just completed a 28 km run in preparation for a marathon; you’d be bursting with energy and vitality and feeling pretty much on top of the world. It’s hard to contemplate that world caving in but that’s precisely what happened to Tim Adam and his family two years ago when, without warning, he had a stroke. He woke up several weeks later, paralyzed on his right side and having lost the ability to speak. The latter condition, non-fluent aphasia, is a common byproduct of a stroke affecting the left frontal lobe of the brain, which is where the language and speech production faculties reside. Tim’s wife, Julie, thought she’d never hear Tim’s voice again until the day she walked into his hospital room and heard Tim singing along to a song on the radio. When Julie informed the staff neurologist of this incredible development, he matter-of-factly said, “It’s well known that music is on the other side of the brain.”

We humans take all kinds of things for granted. Most people know virtually nothing about the brain that controls every aspect of our being. Changing this and enhancing lives is at the heart of the Music, Mind and Wellbeing initiative, an interdisciplinary collaboration at the University of Melbourne that looks at the fascinating collisions of social import at the intersection of music, psychology and neuroscience. An abiding tenet is that music is central to human life, and in Find Your Singing Voice, the third public talk in the Music on the Mind series, Sarah Wilson, a neuropsychologist and the director of MMW, presented research findings that deepen an appreciation of what music and singing do for us.

When that staff neurologist matter-of-factly said that music is on the other side of the brain, he was saying that physically separate parts of the brain are concerned with music and language. Comparing the brain scans of individuals making sentences to the scans of their brains making melody, it is apparent that language ‘lives’ on the left and music ‘lives’ on the right but the regions are side-by-side and there is some degree of overlap. MMW has been carrying out clinical studies to explore how the overlap changes when the individual has different skills or training in vocal singing. What brain imaging tells us is that singing training does make a difference; singing becomes more specialized in the brain. With less training, there is more overlap, more activation at the front of the brain, as the individual is largely singing with their language network. With voice training, the singing network is developed and overlap is reduced. The key question then becomes this one: since singing training changes the brain, what can it do to change the brain after a brain injury? Can singing be used to bootstrap language networks when they have been severely damaged?

Following a therapy called Melodic Intonation, the stroke patient sings with words, intones with words then speaks those words, in face-to-face sessions with the researcher and practicing alone with DVD aides. After six weeks of this training, scans of Tim’s brain showed significant difference in brain function, the front of the brain activating in areas more associated with speech patterns in normal brains. It looks as though singing and voice training have figured in this and Tim and Julie certainly believe it has. In addition, they believe in the benefit of joining a choir and singing in a group. Tim has recently joined the Stroke A Chord choir and the members, who are all affected by aphasia, enjoy making music in each other’s enthusiastic and supportive company. Some members have not recovered their speech and particularly for them, “Where words fail, music speaks”(Hans Christian Andersen).

Written by Miriam Potter, member of Melbourne Sings.

Hume Sings update

Hello Hume Singers,

Have you checked out our Pozible campaign?  Pozible is an online ‘crowdfunding’ website where individuals contribute to creative projects and ideas.  Click here to check out our campaign and help produce the With One BIG Voice concert, and earn some rewards for your contribution – including discounted With One BIG Voice concert tickets! Please pass the campaign on through your networks – time is running out!  If we don’t reach our target, then we will receive none of the pledges made – and you miss out on discounted tickets!!

With One BIG Voice update:
You can download a With One BIG Voice concert poster here.

Don’t forget the deadline for returning your ticket envelopes to your conductor is Monday 12th November.  If every member sells 3 tickets, then you’ll have a full house to perform to!


The Best Years Of My Life- Ray McAlary, Footscray Sings

Late last year my Fiancée, Denise, and I were invited by friends to attend the ‘With One BIG Voice’ Concert at Melbourne Town Hall. We were singing with a Community Choir at the time but that Choir had lost its direction and no longer was fulfilling our needs. We left the Town Hall that day with a firm commitment to be part of the family that is ‘With One Voice.’

What inspired us, apart from the beautiful music, was hearing the stories of Choir members of how the program changed their lives, gave new Migrants a place where they were included, helped struggling people find the education and employment they needed to fulfil their lives, and treated all people equally.

My background has included 32 years helping people find jobs, specialising in the employment of Migrants and people with Disabilities. I have involved myself in Community Organisations for many years. Denise has a talent for including lonely and needy people in her life. Here was a beacon shining its light for us. We joined ‘Footscray Sings.’

Singing has been part of my life as long as I remember. I love to sing solo or in groups. As a Choir, there is the added advantage of performing and brightening the lives of people for whom we perform. I get a buzz out of creating enjoyment for others. If I can make a slight change in the lives of other people, I have made my life worthwhile.

‘Footscray Sings’ is a very happy, friendly group that includes anyone who comes along. We have people from various Ethnic backgrounds, and a wide age spectrum. What binds us together is the love of singing. Our Conductor, Bridget, is an effervescent person who brings out the best in us without seeming to push us hard, but we learn things very quickly. I love this atmosphere as Bridget’s upbeat style helps me to bring out the best in myself and challenge myself to achieve more in my music.

I think the main benefit I get from Footscray Sings is good mental health. Whatever worries I have in life seem to disappear while I am with the Choir, either singing or chatting over supper. When I leave the Choir I seem to take extra strength with me that will help me deal with any problems that arise. I am inspired by members of the Choir who have their health problems, but contribute to the Choir as if there is nothing wrong in their lives. We follow up on members who have not come for a few weeks in case there is something we can do to help them. One of our members was recently in Hospital for a long stretch. When we found out where she was, one of the members went to see her with a gift, and a card signed by all the Choir. Just a little thing but it says, “We care for you.”

Since joining ‘Footscray Sings’ I have embarked on a Charity Fundraising project that has been on my back burner for nine years. I had wondered if I was capable of fulfilling my dream. Since joining ‘Footscray Sings’ I feel that I am capable of achieving anything I am prepared to put my mind to. If others leading harder lives than mine can achieve, so can I.

I love my Choir. I love the Creativity Australia program. These are the best years of my life.

Written by Ray McAlary.

Moved By Music: Is It What You Think?

If you think Melbourne is marvellous (I do), it could be because Melbourne is both mindful and musical. By mindful, I mean that this city is serious about exploring all aspects of our world, trying to understand how things work so they can be made to work better for us, its inhabitants. Applying those insights has certainly helped Melbourne develop into the World’s Most Livable City and it’s not by chance that music figures strongly in Melbourne life. We all know music is important to wellbeing but there’s much yet to learn about the precise ways the two are linked. Some groundbreaking research into this complex relationship is going on here in marvellous Melbourne. There’s University of Melbourne’s Music, Mind & Wellbeing initiative (MMW), linking neuroscience with music and social wellbeing through collaborations across the music, science, health, education, and industry domains. And at the Melbourne Recital Centre, the Music On The Mind series contemplates the relationship between music, the human brain and the human experience from several interesting angles.

The latest lecture in the Music On The Mind series is Moved by Music, which was delivered by Professor Jane Davidson on September 25th. Davidson presented an arsenal of information to stimulate thinking about musical performance and the movements that musicians make. The talk opened with videos of spontaneous musical play and movement ‘culture lessons’ in South Africa, one of the many societies where there is no word in the language to distinguish music from movement. Music and rhythm optimize performance and synchronization of tasks, so in an ensemble, how does individual artistic expression work? Davidson suggests that expressive gesture, the movements that musicians make in the process of making music, is the key. Expressive gestures are readable, shareable, distinctive and necessary. To make a musical sound involves some movement, additional movement is the expressive component or gesture that often conveys an intention. This is something unique to an individual that other musicians and audience members must recognize, decode and internalize. Davidson introduced musical expression studies that seem to indicate this is precisely what happens. Davidson concedes that the academic researcher’s explanation is only partial because the more we learn, the more questions there are to be asked about what remains unexplained. A well-known jazz musician was more pragmatic when he said that movement simply helps get the music out. And perhaps it’s the same situation in reverse on the receiving end; the toe tapping helps the listener to get the music in. What we know without a doubt is that’s hard not to be moved by music and that thinking about it makes us understand a lot more about ourselves in the world.

The next lecture in the series is Find Your Singing Voice:
What happens in the brain when we sing? Singing and speaking are our two main forms of communicating with sound yet we still know very little about how they are related in the brain. This presentation reviews what we do know about the brain when we sing, speak, or sing with words. The findings are important for understanding how the brain changes with singing training, and how we can use singing to retrain the brain to speak after injury.

Written by Miriam Potter.

ADEC “One Destination: Different Journeys” Forum

Action on Disability within Ethnic Communities (ADEC) is proud to announce their upcoming Mental Health Forum “One Destination: Different Journeys” on the 17th of October 2012 at Bell City Event Centre, Preston.

The forum will explore and acknowledge the importance of beliefs, cultural practices and traditions dealing with mental illness and well being within ethnic communities. Consumers and carers from ethnic backgrounds will share their lived experiences during the session. The forum will showcase some of the cultural practices and highlight their importance to people from different communities. An Expo of Mental Health and Multicultural Services will also be on display.

The forum will also feature a range of speakers, including Karen Toohey Acting Commissioner – Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, Mr Arnold Zable – Award winning Australian writer, educator and human rights advocate, and consumers and carers, from culturally and lingusic diverse backgrounds.

You can register here, or download a flyer here.

ADEC aims to empower people with disabilities from ethnic backgrounds, their carers and families to fully participate as members of the Victorian community, ensuring that service systems are inclusive and responsive to their needs.

Contact ADEC for further information about their services or the Forum here.

Sorghum Sisters Support St Kilda Sings


Pictured L-R: Souzet, Samya, Nina, Nuria and Rahma in the Sorghum Sisters Kitchen

We are proud to announce that thanks to AMES Social Enterprise, the ever-popular Sorghum Sisters will be providing the St Kilda Sings choir with supper! The sell-out Sorghum Sisters special dining events as part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival have added to their reputation for quality food and great services, providing a mix of modern and classic Horn of Africa cuisine.

The pioneering Sorghum Sisters was founded in 2005, and comprise of Siti Ibrahim, Nuria Khalil and Rahma Ibrahim, all of whom were refugees from the Horn of Africa. Aside from providing an excellent catering service, the Sorghum Sisters are constantly involved in a diverse range of local community projects – including a offering a 12 month traineeship in Certificate II in Hospitality, provide Injera bread for local African communities and make healthy (and tasty!) lunches for the Carlton and South Brunswick Primary Schools.

The Sorghum Sisters not only prepare incredible meals, but also work tirelessly to preserve the traditional recipes, which have been handed down through the generations!  The recipes have never been written down, but have been lovingly taught by grandmothers and mothers over time.  The Sisters cook as their grandmothers did, preparing and cooking everything from scratch, again proving the dedication the Sisters have to sharing truly authentic and delicious food – cooked from the heart.

Welcome aboard, Sorghum Sisters!


Warning: Undefined variable $additional_loop in /home/withonev/public_html/wp-content/themes/cc-creativity-australia/category.php on line 21

Warning: Attempt to read property "max_num_pages" on null in /home/withonev/public_html/wp-content/themes/cc-creativity-australia/category.php on line 21
Subscribe to our e-news
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Latest news
9 News Melbourne: Combating social isolation through choir

9 News Melbourne came to visit With One Voice Ashburton! Watch their wonderful story below to hear from our members how… [Read]

ArtsHub: Community choir battling loneliness and isolation

ArtsHub has published a fabulous article about our With One Voice program and our fight against the loneliness epidemic. “As its… [Read]

2023 Pillars of Light festival

On the 8th of December, members from our choirs all across Melbourne came together to perform at the Pillars of… [Read]

Read more news »

Creativity Australia logo