There's always heaps going on in the Victoria music scene. If you haven't already signed up for our Newsletter then why not do so now - at the bottom of the home page.
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› All Directions Choir Summons Songs and Stories from the Deep
14/Nov/2022
All Directions Community Choir has written 5 original songs from scratch as part of an original composition project called Songs and Stories from the Deep, facilitated by choir director, Cath Rutten. All Directions Community Choir sits within the Boroondara Community Outreach Program (BCO), a mental health ministry run by the Kew Uniting Church to support people with either disability or mental health challenges, or who are experiencing social isolation. The project received funding from Boroondara City Council through the grants program and the Rotary Club of Balwyn and was run by Cath as a series of workshops using water as a metaphor for living, with the group ‘writing from the heart about their experiences of life; the struggles as well as their…
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› Rare opportunity to play a quarter tone trumpet!
02/Oct/2022
The St. Joseph Melkite Scouts Marching Bandi s proud to present a rare opportunity for an exchange of cultures! The Melkite Scouts have acquired a 'Levantine Trumpet', likely to be one of the first in Australia. This special instrument, an invention from the Levant (modern day Lebanon) that extends the Western…
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› Young artists connect at the 2022 Dream Big Youth Music Festival
01/Oct/2022
CMVic congratulates the students, teachers, artists, and organisers of the Dream Big Youth Music Festival on RUOK Day, 8 September! CMVic stalwarts Steph Payne, Jen Hawley and John Lane worked alongside Outer West artists Amy MacDonald (The Fabulous Meltones), Guillermo Viran (Hasta La Cumbia) and Adolphus Zarwue (AD da Boss) to mentor youth from 8 years old up to 25 to write original songs focussing on themes around social and emotional wellbeing, also inspired by the ideas of RUOK? School staff involved in the process included music, classroom and wellbeing teachers. Delivered as a hybrid event, online and live at The Bowery Theatre, St Albans, several schools were able to organise to travel to the theatre to perform live. But many more young people…
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› Sweet New Series of Celtic Jam Sessions for Young Adults with Diverse Learning Needs & Disabilities
26/Aug/2022
Every Thursday evening in Box Hill, Judy Oleinikov and Katy Addis host an open jam Celtic music session for young adults aged between 15 and 25. Offered by Quasitrad Music Melbourne, the sessions are open to players of all abilities and to anyone with and without lived experience of diverse learning needs, and or disabilities. The sessions are free, funded by the Keys of Life Foundation, a charity that supports students with disabilities and or diverse learning needs to flourish through music making.
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› Squeezing out the Zest! The Music Makers adding Flavour to the Murray Mallee
26/Jul/2022
“We are quite isolated in terms of where we sit within Victoria. Given that we are a really diverse community, we punch well above our weight in terms of the people we have involved in performing arts and community music and I feel that we’re really just under the radar.” So says Kylie Livingston, Community Music Victoria’s Local Catalyst for Mildura, Sunraysia and the Mallee, an exciting role created through the Growing Community Music Project (GCM) to support and nurture a network of community music-making practitioners and participants, living in this north-westerly corner of Victoria. It’s a region well known for its fruit and wine, a number of annual music and arts festivals, and its picturesque location along the banks of the…
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› New Song Book: Songs of the Living World
13/Jul/2022
We were delighted to introduce the Songs of the Living World at the 35th International Society of Music Educators Conference hosted in Melbourne in July 2022. Drawing on many years of creative collaborations with First Nation Elders and artists in intercultural and environmental projects, Laura Brearley has composed thirty environmental songs for community singing groups and choirs, focussed on three inter-related themes: Respect, Protect, Connect. The Songs of the Living World are a testament to our deep and fiercely protective love of the natural world. The recordings feature singers and musicians from across Victoria, with stunning production by Mal Webb. Songs of the Living World includes: lyric and chord sheets, musical notations USB and digital download of recordings of final arrangements separated parts and backing tracks.…
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› Companion Voices: singing for the end of life
15/Jun/2022
There are several singing groups in the US, UK and beyond which specialise in bringing songs of comfort to the dying. You may have heard of the Threshold Choir network in the US. Here in the UK we have Companion Voices founded by Judith Silver in 2014. I asked Judith…
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› Music Is Just as Powerful at Improving Mental Health as Exercise, Review Suggests
15/Jun/2022
The next time you're not able to get out to the gym, maybe spin some records instead: new research suggests the positive impact on mental health from singing, playing, or listening to music is around the same impact experienced with exercise or weight loss. That's based on a
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› Speech or Song? How the Brain Perceives Music
30/May/2022
New research explores the different ways in which the brain distinguishes between music and speech. Source: Cognitive Neuroscience Society Press Release Most neuroscientists who study music have something in common: they play a musical instrument, in many cases from a young age. Their drive to understand how the brain perceives and is shaped by music springs from a deep love of music. This passion has translated to a wealth of discoveries about music in the brain, including recent work that identifies the ways in which the brain distinguishes between music and speech. “Over the past two decades, many excellent studies have shown similar mechanisms between speech and music across many levels,” says Andrew Chang of New York…
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› Kingston Singers – new choir in the City of Kingston!
30/May/2022
Calling all shower singers, car crooners and karaoke carollers: you are invited to join in an evening of song and community with Kingston’s brand new choir. All welcome! Enjoy group singing of songs from many styles and eras, and from many cultural traditions; delicate originals, show stoppers, traditional hollers…