About the Festival

Festival Theme

This year’s festival theme is part of a three year artistic vision which celebrates the natural environment around Coonamble and its bird life.

Moorambilla 2008 – Flight and Freedom

Moorambilla 2009 – Diaspora

Moorambilla 2010 – Coming home

Moorambilla 2011 - Celebrate Life in all its colours and Vibrancy!

Moorambilla 2012 - Weaving our Lives Together

These themes continue the celebrations that have featured in past Moorambilla festivals:

Moorambilla 2006 celebrated the male voice with the creation of the regional boys choir and the ”songs in the key of bloke choir”. Beautiful pyramid lanterns were carried by the men and boys during the first Moorambilla performance down the darkened centre aisle whilst singing at the end of the concert. These lanterns have remained a feature of the festival each year since.

Moorambilla 2007 had as its focus the women and girls of the region and established the “songs in the key of she” for women, and the regional girls choir. This was also the year the inaugural outdoor lantern parade was held down the main street from the Peace tree into the Gala scholarship concert. The wonderful glowing egg shaped orbs of light floating down the street with the hands of all festival participants on them will be a vivid memory of the festival for years to come, and such a reaffirming celebration of the female spirit.

Moorambilla 2008 will metaphorically see those eggs hatch, as new musical and creative ideas take flight across the region because of the festival. The freedom of flight and creative expression will be celebrated through song and heralded in by our found sound sculptures this year. Birds both big and small will swoop and fly during this year’s parade accompanied by some spectacular percussion designed and made by local artist Margie Pye and found sound specialist Luke Robinson. This year will thematically lead directly into

Moorambilla 2009 and 2010 as these birds take flight over the region they will experience the beauty of the natural landscape – the Brewarrina Fish Traps, the Macquarie Marshes, the Warrumbungle Ranges and the wide flat plains that this region is famous for. This great Diaspora of artistic ideas will flow through the regional children’s choirs, the regional adults choirs and the youth project MAXed Out. The festival celebrates the wider region and its myriad of artistic influences, flying out to the far reaches of the 12 shires involved in the festival – and home again in 2010.