AYO Momentum Ensemble is excited to be collaborating with 400 young performers from regional NSW for Moorambilla Voices 21st Birthday Gala Performance at Sydney Opera House Concert Hall on 3 October.
This landmark event will feature more than 90 minutes of newly commissioned music by Australian composers Kevin Barker, Oliver Cameron, Christine Chen, Andrew Howes, Elizabeth Jigalin and Oliver Muller, performed alongside six choirs, 50+ taiko drummers, contemporary indigenous dance, visual art and guest artists including Nancy Bates and Sámi storyteller and yoiker Anna Kråik Åström.
The nine AYO Momentum Ensemble musicians – Sean Weatherley, Joshua Young, Sarah Zhu, Ethan Chiao, Siobhan Makinson, Ingram Fan, Beverly Kwan, Ami Humphries and Lucy Dube – will join 400 singers representing 81 communities across regional NSW perform works that capture the energy and grace of Australian native birdlife across the Narran Lakes and Macquarie Marshes.
Australian Youth Orchestra CEO Kimbali Harding said she welcome the opportunity for the nine AYO Momentum musicians to work with an organisation like Moorambilla, which “combines exceptional music-making with deep community connection”.
“[Moorambilla’s] young choristers are outstanding, and their commitment to creating and commissioning new Australian work is genuinely inspiring. Working alongside them gives our musicians a rare opportunity to learn from artists and communities whose creativity, generosity and cultural leadership are helping to shape the future of Australian music.”
Kimbali Harding, AYO CEO
Moorambilla Voices Founder and Artistic Director Michelle Leonard OAM grew up in Coonamble, western NSW. She founded Moorambilla Voices in 2006 after recognising the untapped potential of young people in regional and remote communities who did not have access to the same quality music education opportunities as their metropolitan counterparts.
“I wanted everyone to have an opportunity to learn, to sing, to read music,” Leonard said. “That’s what this has always been about, giving regional young people the opportunity to step onto the Concert Hall stage – some of them from towns most Sydneysiders have never heard of.”
“The October Gala celebrates two decades of our young people working alongside professional artists to co-create ambitious new Australian works that speak with purpose and joy about our shared connection to Country. To bring more than 400 young people together on the Concert Hall stage of the Sydney Opera House is an extraordinary milestone and a powerful celebration of the confidence, artistry and sense of belonging that is fostered when young people see their communities and stories valued on a world stage.”
The gala brings current participants together with Moorambilla alumni, including Justin Welsh, who first found his voice as a young Moorambilla participant and now returns as an Indigenous language consultant for the next generation.
“Returning to Moorambilla to teach feels like completing a circle,” says Welsh. “This program changed what I believed was possible for my own life, and now I can help young people understand that their language and culture belong on the world’s biggest stages. Every word they learn and carry home keeps the language moving forward, and hearing it ring through the Opera House will show those children that where they come from matters.”
