Sing for Water, Brisbane on Sunday 10 September as part of Riverfestival For further details: www.riverfestival.com.au/sing-for-water/
Over $55,000 was raised by the Sing for Water, Melbourne singers and by donations on site at the concert on Saturday 18 March 2006 in Alexandra Gardens. The Children Sing for Water concert was introduced by Gary Singer, Deputy Mayor & Sian Prior MC, joined for the adult concert by Chris Wootton, CEO WaterAid, Australia and Deputy Premier, John Thwaites speaking from the stage and announcing the amount raised by the individual singers. According to the Office of the Commonwealth Games, 5,000 people attended the concerts. To keep in touch with the clean water project in East Timor managed by WaterAid, Australia in partnership with Plan, you can sign up for a free newsletter at www.wateraid.org.au
Photographs of the rehearsals, the concerts, the press call and WaterAid Australia's work in East Timor, have now been uploaded onto the Sing for Water, Australia Flickr website. For feedback, see below.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59395658@N00/sets/
Sing for Water is already a successful international project that has been running for four years. Sing for Water, Australia is working to expand into an annual programme of mass choir concerts across Australia, inviting community choirs and schools to celebrate the power and beauty of the voice, while making a significant impact on the lives of those without water. Not only are we creating great concerts, but Sing for Water in partnership with WaterAid, Australia invite each individual to do something joyful that will change the lives of some of the world's poorest people. Sing for Water, Australia premiered at Riverfestival, Brisbane in September 2005.
Sing for Water in Melbourne consisted of two concerts: Children Sing for Water and Sing for Water. Click on Children Sing for Water for more details of this event.
Sing for Water, Melbourne choirs and individual singers have raised over $50,000 for WaterAid, towards a clean water project in East Timor. Donations are still coming in after the event.
The ABC featured Sing for Water on The Sunday Arts Programme on 26 March, having filmed three rehearsals with different choirs, plus the final concert.
Sing for Water, Melbourne was led by Kavisha Mazzella, the extraordinarily talented singer, composer and choir leader (la Voce della Luna). The concert repertoire consisted of several haunting and celebratory songs from around the world, linked to stories of survival, courage, humanity and of course, water. A number of professional guest artists performed with the choir, including Kavisha Mazzella, from London the charismatic Helen Chadwick, from East Timor, Paulo Almeida of The Dili Allstars, The Sudanese Catholic Choir, The Timorese Choir and Australia's favourite singer, songwriter and poet Paul Kelly, who wrote the song, "Tonight Our Fires Are Burning" for the 600 voice Sing for Water choir to be performed for this concert in Melbourne.
Sing for Water took place on Saturday 18 March 2006 at 3.30pm as part of Festival Melbourne 2006, The Commonwealth Games Cultural Program in Alexandra Gardens, Melbourne. It was a free event.
Children Sing for Water also took place on Saturday 18 March 2006 at 2.00pm as part of Festival Melbourne 2006, The Commonwealth Games Cultural Program in Alexandra Gardens, Melbourne. It was a free event.
HOW TO DONATE. Individual Sing for Water participants sought sponsorship from friends and family with the funds going directly to WaterAid, Australia to provide communities in East Timor with clean water and sanitation. To donate to WaterAid Australia, you can go online at www.wateraid.org.au and click on donate now. You can also go to WaterAid Australia Events under Sing for Water where there is a newsletter & sponsorship form, which all the singers have been given, outlining the Sing for Water project and where the funds are going in East Timor. This sponsorship form can be downloaded from the website under this section.
Sing for Water, Melbourne is a partnership project which has drawn together the best of the roots of the project initiated in London, with a new dimension unique to this City. Sing for Water, Melbourne is central to The Community Cultural Development, CCD Program as part of the City's Arts and Culture Branch of the City of Melbourne. One of the aims of the CCD Program is to strengthen social inclusion and community building through arts practice. The CCD program initiates and supports opportunities for communities to engage with the arts through creative projects such as Sing for Water and Children Sing for Water.
Sing for Water has invited choirs and singing groups from a wide range of cultural, social and musical backgrounds, with varying degrees of experience, to participate in the project. The more experienced choirs worked alongside those groups that were new to this kind of project, resulting in new friendships, new alliances and new music being forged along the way.
SING FOR WATER FEEDBACK
Thank you on behalf of the members of my choir who took part in the unbelievably successful concert on Saturday 18 March and to Kavisha for her untiring work and patience with all of us. Thank you for the chance to sing for such a worthy cause and congratulations to you all for the success of the venture. Hope to do it all again. Trudy Keating (Choir Leader, The Greek Florinian Choir)
Hi Sing for Water crew, Wow! What a wonderful weekend. Thank you so much for getting me involved and what a wonderful choir we had. Thanx to all those involved and it was a pleasure to meet u all. Hope everyone is ok and we'll meet again soon. Cheers. Paulo Almeida (Guest Artist)
Sing for Water was a great experience for me. I joined as an independent singer who was not part of a choir. I'd often thought of joining a choir, but didn't perhaps have the confidence, so a limited time project like SFW gave me the opportunity to try it out. I will definitely join a choir now, so it has changed my life in that way. I really liked that all the requirements were made clear up front - dates and locations of rehearsals, fundraising expectations, white clothing, etc. Kavisha was such a wonderful choir master. Her warmth and encouragement and huge musical knowledge made it such a pleasant learning experience, and I think made people feel comfortable. The fact that she was comfortable with making a few mistakes in front of us made us feel that we could make a few in front of her. I don't think you could have selected anyone better. She was just fantastic! The actual performance on Saturday came together so well, but it was really disconcerting to suddenly have such a different sound environment to all of our rehearsals. When we were inside, we could clearly hear the lows and the highs, and when we were outside we could not. One rehearsal outside would have prepared us for this a bit better. The fundraising aspect of this project made it so much more worthwhile than just joining a choir for the enjoyment of singing. I was so absolutely thrilled and flabbergasted that we raised so much money. I now have a keen interest in knowing how it is spent, and what outcomes result. And also if WaterAid Australia want any volunteers to go to East Timor to help out. I would consider going for 1-2 weeks at some point. Well, that's about all I can think of for now, apart from saying that I thoroughly enjoyed the actual performance day. Thanks to you and Catherine for fantastic organisation, and wonderful guest artists too. Carol Jackway (Singer)
Sing for Water concerts are now becoming part of the Australian Cultural Landscape, raising funds for developing countries in our region. Singing in a choir can be an enriching and even empowering experience.
Michael Veitch (ABC TV Sunday Arts)
So many people around the world lack clean water. Organising a community event to raise funds for a specific project is good. The people in East Timor are our brothers and sisters. They helped us out in world war two. We let them down for many years. This is a good opportunity to lend a helping hand.
Paul Kelly (Guest Artist) Quote from Heart of Gold interview for Plan Australia
It was such a pleasure to sing with the Sing for Water choir and I'm glad it all went well. $43,000 is something we can all be very proud of. Francois Thurston (Individual Singer)
Thank you all for making such a wonderful experience possible: my participation in the Sing for Water concert made all the difference to how I felt about the Commonwealth Games. To be singing about justice and freedom and raising money for East Timor tempered my negative feelings at the huge waste of money on the opening ceremony when we could have put that cash towards helping nations keep their children healthy. I had a wonderful weekend and even managed to raise a voice for a Millennium Chorus concert on the Sunday. Catherine and Marianne, the organisation was superb, Kavisha, you are an inspiration and I love working with you. Valanga, Paul and Paulo, a thrill to sing with you, Sian, you did a great job. Looking forward to more photos and news of the ABC recording. Hope you are all having a well deserved rest. Meg Montague (singer)
Thanks very much for the opportunity to be part of Sing For Water, and a part of another wonderful event to lend a hand to our friends in Timor. A workmate of mine and her husband came along. She said to me today, her husbands first reaction was can we buy a CD of what we just heard? and their second reaction was that choir should be in the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games. Can’t get much more WOW than that. Jane Crouch (Individual Singer)
Thank you so much for inviting me to join SING FOR WATER AUSTRALIA. It was an inspirational and enriching experience to be a part of, meeting choir members here, choir leaders, Kavisha, Irine and all the soloists. Watching CHILDREN SING FOR WATER was amazing too. I loved all the rhythm and body percussion. I came home educated about the situation in East Timor, with new Melbourne friends and with lots of ideas about how we can develop SING FOR WATER LONDON both artistically and in order to raise more money. Sian was a magnificent MC. And of course it was a great pleasure to sing Georgian songs with Nino Joseph and Christoff in the concert. Jimmy Cliff as a side show as pretty good too! It was good to make contact with the Brisbane SFW team on the day. Huge thanks to both Catherine and Marianne and all who worked on it. I have emailed all the choirs in England about the amazing event you all created. Helen Chadwick (Sing for Water, London)
Dearest Marianne, I want to thank you for being so lovely, calm, positive and natural on Saturday. It takes a lot of energy to answer a million questions, herd the cattle and listen to people. And you did a really good job. All my choir and myself had a fabulous time. Polly Christie (Choir Leader Resonance)
Congratulations to you and Catherine and all for Saturday. It was a great day & I have had good feedback from people who were there. Richard Brown (Friends of Aileu)
I just wanted to thank both of you for the help you gave me, during the Sing for Water rehearsals & concert. As a singer, it's the BEST thing I've ever been involved in & I want to thank both of you for everything you did for me. If there's another concert in the future I'd LOVE to be involved! Sue O'Neil (Brimbank Choir singer)
I really enjoyed the event on Sat and have just made an online donation. Will you be doing it again next year? Katy Williamson (Audience Member)
Catherine, a member of my choir has called me to say she heard an ad for the Arts Program this Sunday coming (26th) at 4pm and they mentioned a segment on Sing for Water. Another member also says she met your son on Saturday and he was very proudly telling her that his Mum was organising the concert. She said he was so excited to be able to share the info with her! Good on him. Wendy Dwyer (Choir Leader, Sing Australia Camberwell, Hawthorn)
Just wondering if there's a recording available of Saturdays performance (which was bloody fantastic by the way). Would love to be able to see and hear it from an audience perspective. Please let me know. Also wanted to say thanks to Marianne, Catherine, Helen and Kavisha for organising such an amazing event. I was rapt to be part of it and I can't believe how much was raised. It's excellent! Thanks again. You're a very inspiring bunch of women and it was great meeting you all. Cate Taylor. (Individual Singer)
We had a fabulous time yesterday singing for water. The audience obviously loved the performance. I know my daughter and her husband did, they told me after the concert. Even the weather is near perfect for the Festival. Well done to all who had a hand in organising this once-in-a-lifetime event for many. I have advised all neighbours who donated about the $43,000 we raised! Hope you raise many more dollars. All the best with future performances. Marlene Meadley. (Singer)
Job well done, we had an enjoyable afternoon, as did the rest of the audience I hope that it the performance was what you hoped it would be thanks for the wonderful entertainment, and I hope that the charity managed to raise substantial amount of money and awareness Sylvia Horiniak (Audience Member)
Many thanks to you all for a great singing and friendship experience on March 18, as well as enabling us all to use the power of song in such a fruitful way. It's great that such a sum of money was raised as a result of the day. Please keep me informed of future SFWs as several fellow singers indicated to me that they would like to join in next year. (Individual Singer)
I am still rather a whirl at the reasons for my participating in the choir, which comprised of a series of steps due to finding my long-lost friend/singing partner of many years ago, Stephanie Klempfner, and her arranging with Catherine for me to join SFW. Steph and I hadn't seen each other since about 1968 until July 2004 and it was great to know we had kept up our singing all those years we were apart. The amazing thing was that after all those years, we had no trouble singing the old songs we once performed as teenagers BC (Before Children, Crows feet and Cellulite).We were hoping to sing together at Melbourne SFW but circumstances prevented Steph from doing so at the last moment. There will be a next time. Liz Seaton (Individual Singer)
We were all very happy and excited to be a part of it all. I went to see the Golden Pride Children's Choir from Tanzania on Sunday at the gardens which was an amazing experience. I heard my name being called out, turned around and saw it was Kavisha. Take care for now and thanks again for the opportunity to be a part of Sing for Water Melbourne. Veronica Gauci (Brimbank Choir Leader)
Thanking you Catherine and Marianne. Wonderful, in deed and in spirit. Christoph Maubach (Borboleta, Golden Fleece, Living Song Choir Leader)
Dear Catherine and Kavisha, and everyone involved in this fabulous event, we were privileged to be a part of this wonderful event! Thank you for all your great job, your professionalism, and for the beautiful music! This was something to remember for all our lives! Thanks, with much love, Joseph, Nino, Christoph (Golden Fleece, Nardanina)
I watched the segment on the ABC Arts Program and wonder if there are any future projects planned. Many thanks. Pat (Singer)
CHILDRENS WEEK SING FOR WATER (Awaiting further feedback on Children Sing for Water)
Thank you, Catherine for your support of my involvement in the process and the outcome. It was pure joy working with those children, even the cheeky ones. Looking forward to our post-celebration. Angela Costi (writer, Children Sing for Water)
I really enjoyed today’s presentation. The children were energetic, dare I say it, passionate with their singing… alive and engaged! I also love the fact that the show was all about children singing and children singing for water… celebrities didn’t come into it! Deborah Nicolson (Program Manager The Song Room Inc)
We were singing all these different kinds of songs for water. Kira (Grade 3 singer)
