MORE THAN JUST A CHOIR...

On Tuesday nights at around 7pm for most of the members of the Esk Community Choir and more often than not, earlier for Alexis and others who come in for "extras", it's Choir practice as usual until 9pm at which time the music folders close, the lights go out and the doors are locked on another wonderful night of singing, everyone departing, serene in the knowledge that as surely as Jacarandas bloom at exam time, Choir will be there again the following week ready to distill the brain and warm the heart as nothing else can following the remnants of everyone's week.

Carolyn & Lloyd King, Lynette Hughes, Caitlin Wollaston, Jan Jennings
Alexis FitzGerald, Susan Walker, Joann Brown: The BBQ Team

However, with its involvement in other activities, the Esk Community Choir has fast become a name synonymous also with a life outside of the Concert Halls and practice room on Tuesday nights.  It may take many to places where sometimes singing is not the primary driving force...like the energetic and willing BBQ workers who fed the hungry at the Esk Race Meeting on July 6th.

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Where's Kathie?  

Last weekend, there were at least two of the Choir, Tom and Kathleen,  who with their instruments,  tooted their tunes at  James Morrison's World's Biggest Orchestra attempt at Suncorp Stadium and along with the 7,220 other fine musicians, helped create a truly amazing sound along with a Guinness Book World Record !!

Tom Byrne & Kathleen Watts
with great nephew Tristan Haswell

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On the very same day in another part of Brisbane, Sue and Alexis were scattering the name of the Esk Community Choir around St Andrew's Church as they sang away the afternoon and evening with Debra Shearer Dirié and her Brisbane Concert Choir along with Choristers from many parts of Queensland, some quite challenging but equally beautiful "Grand Opera Choruses" learning them all 'from scratch'.

Alexis FitzGerald at 'Sing From Scratch' in Brisbane. 

To be a member of the Esk Community Choir is to have these and so many other opportunities enhance the dimensions of their Choral experiences. The next could be on August 10th and 11th when Ross Jell, a Choir friend and an extraordinarily gifted Choral Educator who has been on Scholarship in London for the past 5 years, will be conducting a Workshop at the Sunshine Coast.  There is a subtle magnetism in music that cannot help but set one right.

by Susan Walker