Convention in Hobart
Over the weekend May 1 - 3 2009, 59 members of Brindabella Chorus plus director Glenda Lloyd competed at our regional competition in Hobart. Seventeen choruses from all over Australia competed. Brindabella Chorus was thrilled to be awarded second place in the mid-size category (30 - 60 voices) and third overall behind Wollongong Harmony, who had 60 singers on stage.
Thanks so much for all the positive messages and good wishes. As you can imagine, Brindabella Chorus is very excited over our result and especially pleased that we once again improved our score at contest with 573 points. We have improved our score every year that we have competed.
The Chorus will next compete in Newcastle in 2010 and are
looking to keep on improving.
Convention in Brisbane
Yes...it's really true!
May 19 - 21 2007, 50 members of Brindabella Chorus plus director Glenda Lloyd competed at our regional competition in Brisbane. 15 choruses from all over Australia competed. Brindabella Chorus was thrilled to be awarded first place in the mid-size category (30 - 60 voices) and second overall behind Perth Harmony, who had 85 singers on stage!
Thanks so much for all the positive messages and good wishes. As you can
imagine, Brindabella Chorus is just a little excited at our result. Most of the
chorus went home on the same flight on the Sunday night after convention. They
were thrilled to be met by a large contingent of family and friends including a
banner and cheering!
I don't think we could ever explain how exciting it was to hear our name called
on Saturday night for 1st place midsize and 2nd place overall. The 1st place
midsize was particularly a surprise...we genuinely had no idea that we had done
so well. We had prepared ourselves for the outside eventuality of a 4th or 5th
place medal overall and genuinely didn't expect anything more. After they
announced 3rd and 2nd midsize, most of us were trying to work out who was left!
When they announced 5th place overall, many chorus members did the math pretty
quickly and knew we had placed 2nd! We had a bit of trouble containing ourselves
waiting for the scores. We were surprised and thrilled to find that we'd gone up
by 75 points. We've worked really steadily all this year, and we really hadn't
registered how much we had improved over that time. There wasn't really a single
'ah hah' moment where the chorus suddenly got magically better, it was a steady
progression.
Of course, this also meant that we got to sing in the showcase. Thank heavens
we had thought about it! We sang our contest uptune 'The Moment I Saw Your Eyes'
and then a rousing version of 'We Are Family'.
All up, I think that this was possibly one of the best weekends of our chorus
history. All credit to every member of the chorus who took up the challenge to
take personal responsibility for their own improvement and rose even higher than
my expectations.
We had a ball at the afterglow. Very early on, a very large group sang 'Sound
Celebration' in the open area near the bar, and it was absolutely
incredible...the sheer volume, quality and purity of the music was one of those
amazing moments that you only catch every few years, and it was truly mind
blowing to be standing at the epicentre of all those singers, holding the final
chord in my hands.
Mmmmm, it's very nice hanging about up here in the clouds. Hope I don't come
down to soon.
Cheers, Glenda (Musical director)
