First timers at the Festival of Voices

As part of the annual winter-time vocal extravaganza that is Hobart's Festival of Voices, 'pop up choirs' perform short sets in various locations around the city. The Little Boat Choir of Franklin is barely a year old and today we took part for the first time. We were assigned two locations for the Sunday morning. First up, the open space in Mathers Place at the popular Farm Gate Market held each Sunday in Bathurst Street. It was a chilly but sunny morning and there was a good crowd sitting around sipping coffee or taking a break from shopping. They even got to enjoy our warm up routine... oh dear!

Then we hot-footed it down to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery where we got to perform in a warm and inviting gallery space with arranged seating and even beanbags! There was no time pressure of a choir following us, so we sang a few more numbers. To the right is our set list... a mixture of the folk, gospel and world music we typically sing. It was so much fun. People commented that it looked like we were having fun. And smiling and having fun is a bit infectious in group singing. That's all thanks to the hard work of our choir director Tiffany Eckhardt who arranges the songs, leads our weekly singing and herds cats (us) to make it all happen. Community singing has grown in popularity in recent years and the health benefits are well documented. Get out and sing!