Moorambilla Voices

Opportunity and excellence                    .

Moorambilla Voices provides children from regional and remote communities the opportunity to participate in high-level music making and artistic pursuits, offering talented young singers the chance to experience choral music making with leading professional musicians and composers.

Moorambilla Voices has, over the past six years, grown and developed four ensembles for children from year 3 right through to year 11 in high school. These ensembles take part in the annual program of music skills development, residency camps and performances:

The opportunities are unique and life changing for children from regional and remote communities in western NSW. We aim to:

  • develop a child's singing and musical potential 
  • provide challenging musical learning opportunities  
  • create equitable opportunity for gifted children from regional and remote NSW to participate in high level choral music making with leading professional musicians, composers and ensembles. 
  • create an inclusive regional children’s choir of excellence who can perform and represent their region locally and nationally
  • create an artistic vehicle for regional and remote cultural and artistic expression amongst participants.
  • raise awareness in the region and beyond of choirs as an artistic medium, and in doing so create new performance opportunities and new audiences.
  • promote choral music in remote and regional communities of NSW to encourage community participation across all age and social groups.
  • perform choral music written for our choirs that directly reflects the life experiences of the choristers, the landscape, indigenous legends and languages of the region.   
  • work with leading and emerging Australian composers in residency and by commissioning. 

Each year there are up to 200 young singers in Moorambilla Voices and for each the experience is an accessible, positive, exciting, stimulating and collaborative form of regional and self-expression. The opportunities offered by the Moorambilla Voices project are not only world class but life changing for those who participate. 

Access to Moorambilla Voices is based entirely on musical ability and the ability to actively contribute to the excellence of the group, not on financial circumstance. With a combination of government, philanthropic, private, local fundraising and parental support we work hard to ensure that all children selected to take part can do so. 

Since 2006, in music skills workshops that now cover 30 towns and over 55 schools across western NSW, over 7000 children have worked with Michelle Leonard as part of her annual schools tour. From these students over 650 young people have taken part in the  program.  One-third of these children identify as indigenous. 

The Moorambilla regional singers and their vast network of volunteer supporters have, over the past six years, shown how music can be a powerful and inclusive way of strengthening communities

  • by engaging hard to reach populations, such as youth, ethnic and socially disadvantaged communities
  • providing a creative focus for communities to explore issues and aspirations
  • creating new and diverse artistic work and cultural experiences
  • developing confidence, pride and a sense of belonging in participants

We aim to support active and high quality music making in the communities of western NSW by enabling all talented children to take part, by presenting professional artists and ensembles such as TaikOz and SYO in concert with our ensembles, and by mentoring teachers, interested community members and adult choirs to create and support a strong community of singers across this third of NSW. 

Who we are and Where we're from

Explore these pages to meet our artistic director, artists and partners who present these opportunities.

And meet some of the young singers and discover their towns across the western region of NSW. 


 
 
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