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Sing with Us in November!

Are you interested in singing, but don’t have the time to join a choir? Want to learn to sing contemporary pop music in four-part harmony? If so, you’ll love our upcoming Festive Season Singing Workshop!

This is a perfect way to dabble in a cappella singing without any long-term commitment. Even if you already sing in a choir, why not treat yourself to a little a cappella side-project? We guarantee you’ll have a great time!

Over four Wednesday nights in November, you'll learn a fun song with the members of our ensemble, and then have the opportunity to perform with us in our Christmas Concert on 29 November!

The registration fee of $90 per person (or $50 for full-time students) includes the four-week workshop and your entry to our concert (non-transferable), plus a free ticket to the concert for a friend! If you can sing music in the treble clef, you're welcome to come along - this event has no gender restrictions.

All workshop sessions will be at Everton Park Bowls and Community Club from 7pm, and the concert will start at 7:30pm. Sign up now via the event page and please spread the word!

If you can't make it to the singing workshop but would love to hear us sing, you can purchase Christmas Concert tickets here.

Chorus Social Night

After a busy few weeks, we had a chorus social night on Wednesday instead of rehearsal. There were chats, snacks and a little bit of singing! 

This event gave us an opportunity to reflect on our Brisbane Sings experience and say a fond farewell to Kerry and Courtney. These two wonderful members are taking some time away from our choir, but we'll stay in touch and be ready to welcome them with open arms when they return.

We wish Kerry 'goede reis' as she heads to the Netherlands for a year and look forward to hearing updates on her travels. 

We were lucky in the last week to welcome a new member to the chorus - Jodie. Jodie has a gorgeous bass voice and has previously sung with Murrumbidgee Magic. She recently moved to Queensland and we're very happy that she sought us out as soon as she settled in! 

 
L-R:  Kerry, Nat, Shaz, Michelle F, Kat, Daniela and Rowan D - snacks and chats!
 
Left:  L-R:  Kate, Julie, Lynne, Courtney, and Pearl (with Dermot).  Right:  Shaz and her dog Dermot enjoy the singing!


Jodie (left) at her first rehearsal as a chorus member!  Also the last rehearsal for Kerry (right) - for now!

Performing with the Brisbane Choral Community

We were thrilled to be part of Brisbane Sings 2023, a concert held on 27 August at the Concert Hall in the Queensland Performing Arts Centre. This usually-annual event brings together choirs from all over Brisbane to form a huge (~600 member) mass choir, in addition to featuring a number of choirs in individual performances. The event was back for the first time since COVID, so we were keen to be part of the fun! Also, we had the opportunity to sing our own song on the Concert Hall stage!

Over the last couple of months, we’ve had two rehearsals with the other choirs to practice the joint songs – The Carnival Is Over/I Honestly Love You, Riversong, Let Us Rejoice and an epic Queen Medley (all your favourite Queen songs in a 9-minute arrangement)! We also had a visit during one of our own rehearsals from Craig Allister Young – composer, arranger, musical director and co-producer – to see how our preparations were going. Then, the week of the performance, we spent some time in the concert venue, at an evening rehearsal and walk-through.
 

 

Pics from our two rehearsals with the Brisbane Sings 2023 contingent

The excitement was building, and finally the day of the concert arrived! Our Sunday started with a full dress rehearsal with all the other performers, which was exciting as we finally saw the individual performances from other ensembles. We also solidified the mass songs and tested out our on-stage costume changes!
 

Then we had time for food and a wander around Southbank before heading back to the QPAC Concert Hall for the big event. It did not disappoint! There were beautiful soloists, a wide variety of choirs singing their hearts out, impactful performances by our huge mass choir, hilarious MCs, and of course we got to debut our latest song. We performed this with parody lyrics so were thrilled when the audience laughed at our jokes! It was also gratifying after the show to hear from people who loved what we put on stage.

We can’t wait to see all of the photos, particularly with the performers in our glam rock costumes (so colourful and blingy), so there will be more to come – check out our social media for updates!

Another wonderful part of Brisbane Sings is that they support a charity partner at every event, and this year’s charity partner was the Actors’ & Entertainers’ Benevolent Fund. Australian performers frequently make free appearances in support of deserving charities. When performers are in need, the Actors’ & Entertainers’ Benevolent Fund provides emergency assistance and we are proud to have done our little bit to support their amazing work. Brisbane Sings raised $9000, which was presented to the Actors’ & Entertainers’ Benevolent Fund during the concert.

Thank you to Brisbane Sings for letting us be part of this event and for putting on such an epic project year after year. And a big thanks to our Musical Director, Julie, for leading the way - and writing some very funny lyrics!

 

Top left: Waiting for the show to begin, on stage in the choir seats. Top right: Our performance! 
Bottom:  In our glam rock costumes with Craig Allister Young

LoveNotes Quartet in Australia

From 18–20 August, international champion quartet LoveNotes presented a workshop in Sydney for members of Sweet Adelines Australia and other local a cappella singers.

Michelle F and Michelle N travelled to Sydney to take advantage of this fantastic educational and social opportunity, with a much-loved quartet. We're super proud of Michelle F, who was awarded a regional education grant to support her attendance. 

After arriving in Sydney on Friday, the Michelles did a bit of sightseeing (in strong winds), then enjoyed a keynote presentation about the LoveNotes Quartet journey from formation until today, complete with some of their repertoire highlights from the last ~20 years. This ranged from the first song they ever sang (the Mickey Mouse theme song) through to early classics like Mr Sandman and some of their most-requested repertoire, including Phantom of the Opera Medley.
 

 
Left:  Michelle N and Michelle F enjoy the views of the harbour.  Right:  LoveNotes Quartet performing during their keynote

Saturday and Sunday were packed with classes (vocal health physiology, performing the whole package, rehearsal techniques, master part class, performance anxiety and more), plus individual vocal training and quartet coaching. Michelle N was one of the recipients of a one-on-one voice session (although in front of an audience) with LoveNotes tenor Brittany and bass Stephanie.

 
Left: Canberra-based quartet 'Spare Keys' in an open coaching session. RIght: Michelle N does an eyebrow movement exercise with LoveNotes tenor Brittany - hilarious!

On the Saturday night, LoveNotes featured in an amazing concert (MC'd by Michelle N), which also included beautiful performances by Sydney choruses Endeavour Harmony Chorus, Circular Keys Chorus and Vox Canvas. All award-winners at the national level. Then after the show, there was much merriment at a local pub!

Thank you to Sweet Adelines Australia for organising this fantastic educational event! We look forward to hearing some of the highlights from the Michelles over the coming weeks.

 
Left:  LoveNotes were incredible at the Saturday night show.  Right:  Endeavour Harmony Chorus performing in the show.

Fun Times in June!

We had a wonderful time in June, welcoming keen singers from near and far to our rehearsals to see what we do. They participated in warm-ups, learnt little ditties with us, and had a chance to see us perform some of our favourite songs.

One special guest even travelled from the other side of the world to join us! Well, maybe not quite… Jay (pictured below in pink) is a keen quartetter who was in town from New Mexico, USA, visiting family, when he decided to check out a local barbershop group. This was Jay’s first experience outside of male choirs and he thoroughly enjoyed being part of our rehearsal! We wish him all the best on the rest of his travels and will follow the journey of his quartet, Hound Avenue, on social media.
 

Another highlight in June was performing at Banyo District Community Group's Queensland Day Celebrations! For those who don’t know, Queensland Day is a celebration of the state's culture, heritage, people and industry, centring around Queensland’s ‘birthday’ on 6 June – the official date that Queensland separated from New South Wales and formed an independent colony in 1859.

The Banyo District Community Group’s Queensland Day event brought together members of the local community on a beautiful sunny day for food, entertainment and activities. We loved singing for everyone and were also excited to pick up some plants for our gardens while we were there!

It’s been a great start to the cooler season – we definitely haven’t had any winter blues. How could we, when we have so much fun singing with friends?
 

ABC Radio Appearance with Redland Rhapsody Chorus

Shortly before the Sweet Adelines Australia convention in early May, Kerry and Michelle from our chorus joined singers from Redland Rhapsody Chorus (based in Alexandra Hills) to appear on ABC Radio Brisbane. We were there to promote the convention, which would see more than 850 singers from across Australia come to Brisbane for the first in-person competition since 2019.
 

Michelle (as regional Team Coordinator) and Redland Rhapsody's Megan (as Chair of Regional Convention) spoke with Rebecca Levingston about the convention, our style of music, and what we get out of this artform and being members of such wonderful choirs. Then we joined forces to perform ‘Love You Brisbane’, the classic tune (written by Laurie Stone) that many will remember from the Channel 7 promos back in the 80s and 90s! This was the first ever public performance of the arrangement, as Australian arranger Glenda Lloyd created this piece specially for the convention.

During the opening ceremony of the convention, choruses from all over Queensland (and northern NSW – because they often come to events in Brisbane) performed the song to a full house in the Plaza Ballroom at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. It was a complete surprise for the other attendees! So our radio appearance was done in secret, with no social media, to make sure that everyone was surprised by the performance. Now we can share the story!
 

Performing Love You Brisbane during the opening ceremony of our convention

Attend a Free Open Rehearsal in June

Now that convention is over, we are ready to open our doors to new singers! This is the perfect time to see if we're the singing ensemble that you've been searching for, as we have lots of exciting plans for the rest of the year and are about to start learning new music - yay!

On June 7, 14 and 28, we are opening our rehearsals to connect with people who love to sing. Come along to see what we do and whether or not you'd like to start the audition process to become a member. (Please note: 21 June is the State of Origin, so we won't have access to our rehearsal venue and can't run an open rehearsal that night).

Visitors can join in on our warm-ups, then will have the opportunity to see how we rehearse, hear some of our repertoire, and pick up some great tips on vocal production along the way! Our rehearsal runs from 7pm to around 9.30pm, but guests are free to leave earlier if they can only come for part of the night. 

Choose any night to come along for free, then if you'd like to continue singing with us, we will provide you with information about our audition process and get you started on the path to membership. 

We'd love to see you there, so please REGISTER HERE if you plan to come along. 

Here's a picture from our last Open Rehearsal - this could be you in June (but probably with a jumper)!
 

Sweet Adelines Australia Convention and Competition 2023

On the first weekend in May, the Sweet Adelines Australia Convention and Competition was held in Brisbane for the first time since 2007! This exciting event is held in different locations each year, as members of Sweet Adelines Australia live all over the country. Many Blue Sky Harmony members have been to conventions in Hobart, Perth, Sydney and other places – it’s a wonderful opportunity to travel with friends and enjoy harmony singing and education.

This year the convention was held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre in the grand Plaza Ballroom, and it was a massive event after not having a convention since 2019. Each chorus in the organisation needs to compete at least once every three years, and most of the Australian choruses chose this year to attend. More than 850 people registered for the event and more than 300 session tickets were sold (i.e. tickets to individual sessions rather than the whole convention – generally friends and family of singers).

The Friday of convention started with the Mass Sing in the Cultural Forecourt of Southbank. This is an incredibly fun session, where all convention attendees gather and sing songs that we all know. Although we learn these in our own choirs, it’s exciting to be part of a huge choir with hundreds of voices! And we always get the attention of passers-by (and ABC News, on this occasion).
 

 
The Mass Sing in the Cultural Forecourt at Southbank - singing with hundreds of our peers!

Next was the Opening Ceremony, MC’d by one of our tenors, Michelle, who is also the Team Coordinator of Sweet Adelines Australia’s Regional Management Team. All of the Queensland choruses (and Headliners Chorus from northern NSW) joined together for a surprise performance of Love You Brisbane – the Channel 7 jingle that many people know. It was a great way to open the session, and the other attendees loved it!

 
The Plaza Ballroom before the crowd descended, and the surprise performance of Love You Brisbane!

Straight after this, the Quartet Competition was underway. Twenty quartets took to the stage to sing their contest sets, and we were proud to cheer our quartet Luminous to a fifth-place medal! There wasn’t too much time to celebrate though, as Blue Sky Harmony had rehearsal that night for the chorus competition the following day.

 
Michelle in her role as MC for the Opening Ceremony, and Luminous Quartet on stage in the competition

On Saturday morning, we donned our costumes and stage makeup, then watched the first session of the chorus contest to support our friends in other ensembles. We absolutely loved seeing what they’d been working on over the past few years. Then we ducked off to a nearby park to warm up under some beautiful trees and focus on what we were about to do. After that, we hit the stage in our personalised ‘blue and bling’ costumes, with the comfiest shoes (silver and white sneakers for the win!) and had an absolute ball singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow and Hooray For Love.
 

   
In the audience at the chorus competition then warming up in the park - ready to go on stage!

We received so many lovely comments from audience members, coaches and friends, and were proud to receive the third-place medal in our category (small chorus division). As a group of 18 singers – equal smallest in the contest – we were excited to have placed so high, above much larger choruses.

After the contest (and dinner), the Parade of Champions Concert began! Luminous had the opportunity to sing again, along with all the other medallist quartets, the top five choruses and the winning choruses in each division. Several awards were also presented, recognising some impressive achievements within Sweet Adelines Australia.

 

Family and Friends Concert and Special Guests

Very soon we’ll be taking to the stage at the Sweet Adelines Australia Convention and Competition in Brisbane, along with choruses and quartets from all over the country! To give our friends, family members and other supporters a sneak peek of our contest set, we held a Family and Friends Mini-Concert on 26 April.
 

 
Photos from our Family and Friends Mini-Concert

These sorts of concerts are held by most choirs preparing for contest – they provide an opportunity to perform for a supportive audience, and we also have a chance to test out our costumes! As well as performing our two contest songs, we sang a range of other repertoire and the show also featured a performance by one of our quartets. After the show, we had time to mingle with our audience, as they wished us well for the big event!

Then on Wednesday night this week, we had another chance to perform our competition songs – this time for visiting quartet Skylark! Skylark is made up from some of the best singers in the country – Jo and Kirsten from Perth and Fremantle, and Avril and Glenda from Canberra. We particularly loved seeing Glenda and Avril again, as they have been two of our coaches over the past year (and Glenda has coached and supported us since we formed in mid-2019). After we sang our songs for them, Skylark absolutely wowed us with their competition set! With minimal opportunity to sing together, due to distance, this awesome foursome is certainly impressive, and we’re sure they’ll take out the top spot in the quartet competition at our convention this weekend.
 

 
Us with members of Skylark Quartet (centre), and our Sweet Adelines Australia convention first-timers!

As this rehearsal was our final one before convention, we shared messages of support and thanks to other chorus members. We exchanged little tokens of gratitude in the form of paintings that we created together at our retreat in March. Our Musical Director, Julie, also gave personalised keep cups to members of our resident quartet, Luminous, to wish them well in the quartet competition. This convention is an exciting one, because we eleven of the members who will be on stage with us have not previously attended a Sweet Adelines Australia convention! Nine of these fabulous singers were there for the memory to be preserved in a photo (see pic above). 

Our hobby is unique in that we have connections with singers of four-part harmony all over Australia (and the world)! So whenever any of us visits a major city – and even some regional cities and towns – there is a chance to visit another chorus. And we are welcomed with open arms and beautiful harmonies. We can’t wait to see other members of Sweet Adelines Australia at our convention this weekend!

Member News

Quite a bit has been happening membership-wise over the last few months! Following the success of our January Open Rehearsal, we held another Open Rehearsal in February. It was lovely to sing with a new group of guests and perform some of our repertoire for them (they were a super enthusiastic audience!). As well as our Open Rehearsals, welcomed visitors to regular rehearsals, and three members have joined us since the start of the year.

First off, Daniela joined our lead section. Daniela is a classically trained singer and audiologist, who embraced our style of a cappella in just a few short weeks and passed her audition just in time to attend our retreat.

The next member to join was Lynne, who we first met at our October 2021 Open Night – she loved our sound, but the timing wasn't right to audition. We were glad to see her again at our 2022 Festive Season Singing Workshop, in preparation for auditioning this year. Lynne is a baritone and we're thrilled that she's finally part of the chorus!

Most recently, we’ve welcomed EmJay to our bass section. EmJay visited us in February and has been super enthusiastic in learning our songs and barbershop technique.

We look forward to getting to know these talented new members even better over the coming months, and seeing them learn more and more about this unique artform!
 

Left: Leads Michelle F, Nat, Daniela and Carmel at Daniela's first rehearsal as a member. Right: EmJay and Lynne

In other membership news, Rowan D has recently celebrated her one-year Sweet Adelines anniversary! Rowan has embraced every opportunity in our organisation over the past year, starting off with travelling to the Festival in Adelaide in May 2022. She has been to education and social events, joined our Management Team as Financial Manager, become the Assistant Section Leader for the baritones and in March she had her debut public performance in her quartet, Happy Accidentals (as lead). Congratulations, Rowan!
 

Rowan D with a gift from the chorus to mark her 1-year Sweet Adelines anniversary

Singing, Learning and Socialising

After waiting more than a year to have our chorus retreat at Tamborine Mountain, after storms/floods thwarted our attempts last year, we finally made it! This event was held from February 24–26 at Cedar Creek Lodges, which was a beautiful setting, and our coach was Glenda Lloyd. Glenda is Master Director of Brindabella Chorus and one of our favourite coaches! She shared a wealth of expertise, ideas and energy with us throughout the weekend, as we worked on our contest package.

When we weren't singing as a chorus, we were quartetting, socialising, playing instruments (or singing along), painting, or writing notes for each other's gratitude bags. We are truly thankful for this chorus and all the experiences we share. Retreat is always special – it is wonderful to have this time together to focus on learning and connecting.
 

 
 
Above: Retreat memories - singing and painting, with a sneak preview of the final artwork (a few more squares to add!)

Not long after retreat, on 11 March, we had one of our favourite events – Sequins and Songs! This quartet networking and performance event has been running since 2019 and has really become something that barbershoppers across South-East Queensland look forward to. Seventeen ensembles from not only Queensland, but also Victoria, took the opportunity to perform for our amazing barbershop community.

Blue Sky Harmony was well represented, with our members singing in four quartets and a trio. We sang, danced, laughed (...some of us even shed a tear or two), caught up with old friends and made some new ones! Thanks to everyone who came along to support this event – we can’t wait until next year!

  

 

 

Meeting New Singers

We were thrilled to meet so many guests at our Open Rehearsal on 18 January! We hope they enjoyed themselves and left with a better understanding of our style of a cappella, the way we operate, and the general vibe of our ensemble. In the end, nearly thirty community members registered for this event and about half of them made it along on the night. The picture above is of some our enthusiastic guests, after they learnt a little part of a song in four-part harmony with us!

Anyone who registered but couldn’t make it to the event has since been invited to another rehearsal. We have already welcomed back some of the Open Rehearsal attendees as they’ve started the audition process, to become chorus members. We hope we've inspired others on their journey to find their perfect singing group, and we’re always happy to provide recommendations for other choirs in Brisbane. There's nothing like finding a wonderful bunch of people to sing, laugh and learn with each week, and there are so many options in our city.

If you would like to check us out sometime, we will have only one more Open Rehearsal in the first half of this year – it will be on Wednesday 22 February. More event info can be found HERE – please register via the form on that page and feel free to contact us if you have any questions. Whether you're someone who hasn't sung in years, or you're already in a choir but are looking for the next step, we encourage you to come along.

Our Open Rehearsals involve physical and vocal warm-ups, which you're welcome to participate in, and then you will have the opportunity to see how we rehearse, hear some of our repertoire, and pick up great tips on vocal production along the way! Our rehearsal runs from 7pm to around 9.30pm, but you're free to leave earlier if you can only come for part of the night. We hope to see you there!

Blue Sky Harmony Member Updates

Over the past few months we’ve had a lot to celebrate in terms of membership! In November, we welcomed a new member, Carmel. We first met Carmel at our July 2022 Open Night, and she decided to start the audition process with us in September. She took on the challenge of learning our contest ballad as a tenor, and showed her ability to hold her part independently. We were thrilled to accept Carmel as a member in early November, and she has now moved to the lead section.

Another highlight towards the end of the year was the return of another lead, Courtney. Courtney was a foundation member of the chorus who took some time off in 2022 to focus on other areas of life. We kept in touch with Courtney during this time and knew she would return at some stage. She re-joined the chorus in time for our Christmas Concert and we have absolutely loved seeing her more regularly again!

The festive season also marked the one-year Sweet Adelines International anniversaries for Kerry, Sharon and Pearl. It feels like they’ve been with us for much longer than a year, and we know they’ve had some amazing experiences since they’ve joined. All three singers came to the choir with strong musical training (Kerry and Sharon teach piano and steel pan drumming) and have enthusiastically participated in a range of opportunities, including travelling to Adelaide with us in May 2022 for the Sweet Adelines Australia Festival. We’re thankful to have gotten to know them.

We’re looking forward to meeting new singers in 2023 and welcoming new members into our chorus!
 

Photos: Main - Pearl (left) is presented a small gift to mark her anniversary, by tenor section leader Michelle (right). Above: Kate, Sharon, Rowan and Kerry in Adelaide in May for the Sweet Adelines Australia Festival.

January Coaching with Avril Hughes

Each year, we receive a free coaching visit from a member of the Sweet Adelines Australia Regional Education Faculty. This is a wonderful way for us to learn from talented educators from across the country, and meet new coaches before booking them for future coaching.

This year, we requested that our Regional Education Faculty visit be completed by Avril Hughes, one of the newest appointees to the education team. Avril has a wealth of experience in the barbershop and choral music arenas (with a strong foundation in the Kodály Method), as well as being an accomplished violinist. She was the lead singer of the 2019 Australian champion quartet, Enchant, and champion chorus, A Cappella West (in Perth) and currently sings with Skylark Quartet and Brindabella Chorus (in Canberra).

Avril’s work with us focussed on expression and the musical delivery of our contest songs, and we loved her approach to coaching. As well as working with our chorus for a full day, Avril worked with some of our members one-on-one and also coached local quartet Luminous.

Since Avril hadn’t been to Brisbane before, we also took the opportunity to show her around Southbank. We had a lovely dinner and ice cream and, of course, took some happy snaps with the Brisbane sign! We can’t wait to see Avril again when she’s back in Brisbane for the Sweet Adelines Australia Convention in May, performing with Skylark Quartet.
 

Join us at an Open Rehearsal

Are you an experienced singer looking for something fresh and new this year? Or someone with minimal group singing experience? Either way, come along to one of our free Open Rehearsals, on 18 January or 22 February 2023 at Everton Park Bowls and Community Club.

What to expect

Our Open Rehearsals will involve physical and vocal warm-ups, which you're welcome to participate in, and then you will have the opportunity to see how we rehearse, hear some of our repertoire, and pick up great tips on vocal production along the way! Our rehearsal runs from 7pm to around 9.30pm, but you're free to leave earlier if you can only come for part of the night.

Whether you're someone who hasn't sung in years, or you're already in a choir but are looking for the next step, come check us out at one of these free events!

Register today for the 18 January or 22 February Open Rehearsals. 

Joining our chorus

We know that once you hear our style of a cappella music, you'll be hooked! So information about how to join our group will be available for anyone who is interested. Although you can start the audition process at most times of the year (aside from some periods in which we're focusing on specific performances), people often find it easier to do this with other auditionees. So we strongly encourage you to come along in January or February, as they will be our only Open Rehearsals for at least the first half of 2023.

About Blue Sky Harmony

Blue Sky Harmony is not a regular choir - we sing contemporary music in four-part harmony, incorporate physical expression into our songs, and we are always honing our skills. We receive coaching from experts several times a year, and love to perform and share our music with the community. 

Our arrangments suit all vocal ranges, so if you have a voice that is too low for a standard choral alto part, our bass section will make you feel right at home! If you love those high notes, we also have a part that's perfect for you - plus melody and harmony parts in the mid-ranges. There really is something for every singer! 

Blue Sky Harmony is open-minded and inclusive of people from all walks of life. You can find details of our vision, guiding principles and affiliations here. 

Merry Christmas from Blue Sky Harmony

We hope that your year has been as wonderful as ours, and we look forward to catching up with friends of the chorus in 2023. For our last update of the year, we'd like to share a Christmas video that we recently created to contribute to the 2022 Spirit of Song Virtual Christmas Concert.

This is the second year that the Australian National Choral Association (Qld and NT branch) has run the Spirit of Song and we loved watching everyone's submissions when the concert was released.

As you can see, we took our video very seriously, with only the highest production standards and finest acting skills from our members. 😜 We hope you enjoy this video, because we sure had fun making it!

Click here to watch our video!

May you all have a joyful and relaxing festive season and we wish you all the best for 2023! 💙

Community Christmas Carols 2022

After taking a year off from carolling in 2021, we were back out and about this year on the northside of Brisbane, performing at community Christmas events!

We started on 4 December at North Lakes Christmas Carols (pics below)! After an early sound check, we took the opportunity for a bit of social time at a nearby cafe, before returning to the big event at dusk to sing some festive music on the main stage. It's always fun to perform for a big crowd, particularly when the first few rows are full of smiling children who are dancing and singing along!
 

Next, we were invited to perform a bit closer to home, in Nundah, at Christmas in The Village on 8 December. This wonderful free event was held at Northside Connect and hosted by Nundah Now. The other entertainers for the evening were Northgate State School Choir and Pineapple Vest, and of course, we had a special visit from the man in red! Santa made a grand entrance after we finished singing and everyone was VERY excited to see him, as you can see below!
 

We wrapped up our carolling at the Redcliffe Peninsula Christmas Carols on 11 December. It was a beautiful day and families were out in force – it was a crowd of thousands! We were originally asked to perform roving carols in Santa's Village, but at the last minute we were asked if we'd mind also filling a slot on the main stage – of course, we were very happy to oblige! The sound team quickly found mics for each of us and we performed a 15 minute set for an appreciative audience. The pictures below are of us in Santa's Village and hanging out in our green room between sets.  
 

We thoroughly enjoyed our Christmas performances for the year and appreciate the invitations from the event organisers - Christmas Moreton Bay Region and Nundah Now.

A Wonderful Start to the Festive Season

This year we ran a Festive Season Singing Workshop, which we had successfully run in 2019 - before COVID interrupted subsequent festive seasons! Throughout November, we were joined by eight members of the community who were keen to learn more about harmony singing and have a chance to perform.

Our guests learnt the classic Christmas pop hit by Mariah Carey, ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’, and a sweet festive round, while also working on vocal production and performance skills. After four weeks of rehearsals, our guests had the opportunity to perform with us at our Christmas Concert.

The workshop and concert were held in our rehearsal venue – Everton Park Bowls and Community Club – and were supported by a grant from the Kedron-Wavell Services Club. We are extremely grateful for their support of this project!

The Christmas Concert was a great success, with around 90 people joining us for some festive fun.
The night included beautiful performances from the QUT Aca-demics and Gold Coast chorus Mixed Vocal Project (pictured below). We loved singing with our Festive Season Singing Workshop participants for the finale - they did a great job! The audience also participated enthusiastically in a sing-along of some favourite Christmas carols. It was a brilliant way to kick off the festive season!

We received some great feedback from our Festive Season Singing Workshop participants on their experience, including 'Really enjoyed the experience and found the songs just challenging enough to keep it interesting. Loved the bits of training along the way as well. Friendly group too! Very positive experience.' We look forward to running similar programs in future. 

 

Time for Carols!

This festive season, Blue Sky Harmony is excited to have the opportunity to perform at a number of community Christmas events. We try our best to accept as many invitations as possible at this busy time of year, because we love to share our music with audiences. 

We are looking foreward to performing at North Lakes Christmas Carols, Christmas in the Village and Redcliffe Christmas Carols. Details can be found in the image below, and also by visiting the event websites:

• North Lakes Christmas Carols

• Christmas in the Village

• Redcliffe Christmas Carols

The North Lakes and Redcliffe carols are weather-dependent, so we're hoping that the rain will hold off. Keep an eye on our Facebook page for updates!

Luminous Quartet at the Barbershop Harmony Australia National Festival

Blue Sky Harmony members love to sing in quartets, and quartetting is regularly part of our rehearsals. There are so many things to learn from quartetting, so we encourage everyone to give it a go, even if they don't join a quartet on a permanent basis. 

Two of our members, Nat and Michelle, are part of Luminous Quartet - the other two members of the quartet (Sharon and Natalie) are based at Tamborine Mountain and the Gold Coast. These singers travel regularly to rehearse because they know they have something special, and recently they were able to share this with barbershoppers from all over Australia, at the Barbershop Harmony Australia National Festival. They flew to Hobart for this event, after qualifying for the semi-finals with an excellent score at the Barbershop Harmony Australia (BHA) Sunshine Region Convention in May 2022. 

This year's festival was historic, as it was the first year that women's ensembles qualified for medals in BHA's national event. Previously, groups like Luminous have been able to participate on an invitational basis, but not qualify for prizes, as BHA membership was only open to men. Luminous performed alongside other fantastic quartets from our organisation (Sweet Adelines Australia) - Side Hustle and Cocktail Hour. 

After a fantastic semi-finals performance, all three women's quartets from Sweet Adelines Australia qualified for the finals. As scores are cumulative, semi-finals scores were not revealed, but Luminous was thrilled to be announced as finalists during the festival's cocktail function. The following day, they took the stage with 11 other quartets and performed a beautiful finals set. We were happy to cheer them on via the webcast, and watch as they were awarded the bronze medal in the women's quartet category. Cocktail Hour took out first place and Side Hustle finished in second. 

With nearly 60 quartets from around the country entering into a BHA convention this year, and 40 competing at the national level, we are extremely proud of Luminous Quartet. Making it into the top 12 was a big achievement and we can't wait to see what they do in future!
 

Luminous Quartet - Nat, Natalie, Michelle and Sharon

Gearing up for the Festive Season

As you'll have seen if you follow us on Facebook or Instagram (@blueskyharmony), we have been spending a bit of time on our festive season repertoire over the past month or so. We love this time of year as it provides lots of chances to perform, which is one of our favourite things to do!

If you're keen to see us perform, the best opportunity will be at our Christmas Concert on Wednesday 30 November, starting at 7:30pm at Everton Park Bowls and Community Club. This will be a fantastic evening of music to kick-start the festive season! 

We're thrilled that the concert will include special guests the QUT Aca-demics! This awesome a cappella group is based at the Queensland University of Technology and we can't wait to see them perform again. We crossed paths earlier in the year at a consert run alongside the Barbershop Harmony Australia Sunshine Region Convention. 

The night will be filled with harmony, including festive and non-seasonal repertoire from our chorus, and a special performance by participants in our recent Festive Season Singing Workshop. Audience members will even have a chance to join in the singing! 

Tickets are only $10 per adult and free for children (aged under 18). You can find out more information and book tickets here.

The QUT Aca-demics - Queensland University of Technology's a cappella ensemble

...A Great Excuse for a Chorus Brunch/Pyjama Party

In late September, the annual Sweet Adelines International Convention was held in Phoenix, Arizona. This is always a highlight, despite the fact that most of our members have never attended in person. We all have the opportunity to tune into the best barbershop in the world via the webcast! The convention runs over five days, with competition sessions for quartets, small and mid-sized choruses, and 'open' choruses (generally huge!). 

This year we got together for a watch party to see the chorus finals, and we wore our PJs for two reasons: 
1. It was an early start, due to the time difference with the USA
2. Sweet Adelines International was holding a watch party contest and looking for fun pics of watch parties with costumes

We encouraged members to not wear make-up or put any effort into doing their hair (in fact, messy hair was ideal!). We thoroughly enjoyed our morning, sharing brunch (and a few mimosas) and discussing the amazing performances that we witnessed. We also introduced the next generation to barbershop, as our host's children watched some of the choruses!

We found out a few weeks later that our photo was short listed for the watch party competition being run by Sweet Adelines International - we were in with a 1/10 shot at winning $1000 USD! Unfortunately we didn't win on this occasion, but it was exciting to be in the running. 

This was the first in-person international convention since the start of the pandemic, and the competitors did an amazing job to prepare their packages with much more limited rehearsal time compared with normal years. We can't wait to see what they do next year!
 

Sing with Us in November!

Are you interested in singing, but don’t have the time to join a choir? Want to learn to sing contemporary pop music in four-part harmony? If so, you’ll love our upcoming Festive Season Singing Workshop!

This is a perfect way to dabble in a cappella singing without any long-term commitment. Even if you already sing in a choir, why not treat yourself to a little a cappella side-project? We guarantee you’ll have a great time!

Over four Wednesday nights in November, you'll learn a classic Christmas pop hit (released in 1994... any guesses?) with the members of our ensemble, and then have the opportunity to perform with us in our Christmas Concert on 30 November!

Registration is only $60, which includes the workshop and your concert ticket. If you can sing music in the treble clef, you're welcome to come along - this event has no gender restrictions.

All workshop sessions will be at Everton Park Bowls and Community Club from 7pm, and the concert will start at 7:30pm. Sign up now via the event page and please spread the word!

If you can't make it to the singing workshop but would love to hear us sing, you can purchase Christmas Concert tickets here.
 

Out and About in the Community

On Sunday we had our first open community event performance in about 10 months! It was so exciting to be part of the entertainment at Nundah Village Street Festival, which was a stone's throw from our old rehearsal venue – Toombul Shire Hall.

We sang a range of repertoire for the local community on a gorgeous spring day! It was great to hear some of the other performers too. The Nundah Village Street Festival is a fantastic community event that has been running for 20 years (with a break at the height of the pandemic)! Entry is always free, and in addition to great live music, there is food, entertainment, stalls, bands, rides and more! We encourage you to check it out next year.

After the festival, a few of us stayed on for karaoke at local bar Fitz + Potts. We duetted, sang solos, and dabbled in pop, rock, jazz, musical theatre and a decent dose of Disney. We had the best time!
 

We can’t wait for our next performance, which will be on Wednesday 30 November at our Christmas Concert! Tickets are on sale now - we hope to see you there.

A Visit from Glenda Lloyd and a Fabulous Show!

A few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to spend lots of time with coach Glenda Lloyd from Canberra, who was in Queensland as part of a Regional Education Faculty visit from Sweet Adelines Australia. So of course we snapped up any free time that she had!

We had whole-chorus coaching on the Friday night and Sunday, and on the Saturday night Glenda ran individual and small-group sessions. We have learnt a lot that we can apply to our current and future repertoire, and had a great time in the process! Thanks Glenda and our Musical Director, Julie, for making this fabulous weekend happen!
 

At our next rehearsal after coaching, we took time to reflect on what we’d covered during Glenda’s sessions. Membership Coordinator Michelle ran a 'retro' session, during which we all contributed suggestions of things we'd like to start, stop or continue, based on what we had learnt. The ideas were then grouped into common concepts. This retro session helped us remember key points from the weekend, while also creating a valuable record to refer back to in future.

Another highlight of recent weeks has been our group outing to see Postmodern Jukebox at QPAC (see main pic, above)! Although we normally rehearse on Wednesday nights, we had to make an exception on 7 September because most of our choir members had bought tickets to the show more than a year ago (the original show date was cancelled due to the pandemic). It was definitely worth the wait! The singers, instrumentalists and tap dancer absolutely wowed the audience – so much energy! We’ll definitely see them again next time they’re in Brisbane.  

August A Cappella in Brisbane

Last weekend four Blue Sky Harmony members participated in Barbershop Boot Camp with members of eight other choruses from Hervey Bay to Canberra! There were also attendees who don't belong to a choir at the moment, so this was a great opportunity for them to sing in a large group.

We worked hard to polish two workshop songs - Break My Stride and One More Song - by splitting into two choruses and running section rehearsals as well as two chorus rehearsals, then we performed for each other. We also learnt tags and fun ditties during warm-ups and sang in 'scratch' quartets (spontaneous combinations of four individuals).

As well as these activities, we had plenty of time to catch up with friends who we haven't seen in ages and make a few new ones! Thanks to the fantastic Regional Education Faculty who ran this event, Linda Wareham and Jenni Pyefinch, for guiding us throughout the weekend and imparting a great deal of knowledge. 

Kerry, Michelle, Rowan and Nat from Blue Sky Harmony

 
One of the two choruses of the day (left) and our Regional Education Faculty, Jenni and Linda (right)


The full contingent of barbershoppers!

A Busy Winter for Blue Sky Harmony

So much has been happening since we returned from Adelaide! Two weeks after the Festival, Sweet Adelines Australia screened all entries into the video contest, and we got together for a watch party at Musical Director Julie’s house. What a great way to spend an evening!

Our contest video watch party at Julie's place - complete with cute pets!

Soon after the watch party, Assistant Director Jess was back on the road – this time she travelled to Sydney for the Sweet Adelines Australia 2022 Directors' School. Musical Directors, Assistant Directors and Regional Education Faculty from all over the country spent time learning, singing, sharing ideas and generally having a great time! This event is run annually to support the development of our musical leaders, and is one of the amazing benefits of being part of Sweet Adelines International.

 
Assistant Director Jess (right side of both pics) at the 2022 Sweet Adelines Australia Directors' School

Another big event in June was the long-awaited 30th anniversary celebration for the Brisbane River City Clippers! This event had been delayed twice due to the pandemic, and it was a fabulous night, with dinner, performances and the sharing of lots of precious memories. As part of the festivities, we performed a barbershop arrangement and a new favourite song that incorporates body percussion.

Blue Sky Harmony at the River City Clippers' 30th Anniversary Dinner

We had another performance opportunity last weekend, as part of a workshop. A small contingent from our chorus enjoyed a scenic drive to the regional town of Esk for the Australian National Choral Association’s July Jamboree – A Musical Esk-apade! Dr Anthony Young was our engaging and extremely knowledgeable presenter/facilitator at the event, which involved choirs from all over the south-east.

We worked on two full songs (and a canon/round) as a massed choir, then performed these pieces and two of our own songs in an afternoon concert. It was a pleasure to see performances from Brisbane Pride Choir, South Burnett Chorale and the host ensemble, Esk Community Choir, and also have the opportunity to share some of our own repertoire.

We love to make connections with other singing groups and seeing what each has to offer. There really is a perfect ensemble out there for everyone! Thanks to ANCA Qld and NT for putting on this fantastic event.

  
The ANCA July Jamboree in Esk

Region 34 Festival 2022

We had the most wonderful time in Adelaide in May, at the much-anticipated Region 34 Festival! We attended education sessions on gospel and jazz, rehearsed the festival song (Happy Together - so appropriate!), sang, danced, caught up with barbershop friends from across Australia, made new friends, saw the sights, ate a lot of delicious food and tried a LOT of wine.

A highlight of the weekend was the Festival Concert, where choruses and quartets performed - some ensembles shared their competition packages, whilst others sang completely different songs. We chose to put our contest package on stage for the barbershop community that we are so grateful to be part of. You can check out our performance here. 

We are extremely proud of our performance and have received amazing feedback from friends around Australia and the world. We feel extremely fortunate to have had every chorus member at the Festival, considering the current risk of illness. Every one of our members has worked so hard and contributes a great deal to our little chorus.We are especially proud of our seven members who hadn't previously experienced the joy of a Sweet Adelines Australia convention - we can't wait to do it all again with them in convention in May 2023 in Brisbane!

Our chorus couldn't have achieved such success without the steady leadership of our Musical Director, Julie. She has been an absolute star, putting so much time and effort into our development and managing to keep a smile on her face all the while! Also, a big shout-out to our Assistant Directors, Jess and Karen, who have been a critical part of our journey to the Festival. We truly appreciate our directing team!

Thanks to Adrian Gimpel for snapping the great performance photo at the top of this story.

 

Concert and BHA Sunshine Region Convention

The past week has been a whirlwind! On Wednesday night, we had a great time at our Family and Friends Mini-Concert, joined by around 50 audience members. We sang our contest package in preparation for the upcoming Region 34 Festival in Adelaide, and some other fun repertoire. The show also featured Luminous Quartet and Sweet Steel (aka our awesome bari, Sharon). Thanks to everyone who came along!

We spent Saturday at the Barbershop Harmony Australia Sunshine Region Convention - it was a massive day, with an 8am arrival and 11pm departure for some! We won the invitational division with a score of 71.7 with 11 singers on stage, and were excited to be invited to perform in the afternoon A Cappella Concert and evening Showcase of Champions.

Another highlight of the day was watching Luminous Quartet win the women's quartet division and place second out of 17 quartets in the open division! They really stepped it up from their performance on Wednesday night and we're extremely happy to have been there to see this great achievement. 

Big thanks to Julie Edwards, our Musical Director extraordinaire, for preparing our choir for the convention, guiding us through all the call times and on-stage times, making us feel super comfortable on stage, and even playing the part of valet at one point!

Our members loved catching up with singers from other barbershop choruses across the region and spending some quality time together as a chorus. Congratulations to all the performers who crossed the stage over the course of the event and The Blenders Chorus for being amazing hosts. We thoroughly enjoyed all the performances and can't wait to return next year!
 

 
      Time for a drink during a break at the Sunshine Region Convention!             Congrats to Luminous on their medals!

Recent Updates from Blue Sky Harmony

Shortly after our chorus ‘at home’ retreat, we hosted Sequins and Songs - a networking and performance event for barbershoppers and barbershop-lovers in South-East Queensland and surrounds. More than 80 people attended this event, which still operated under COVID-safe venue limits, despite recent changes to regulations. Guests included members of eight choruses from Sweet Adelines Australia and Barbershop Harmony Australia.

Attendees sang, supported local quartets and small groups, caught up with friends and made new connections. We truly enjoyed bringing people together for this event and hearing what our performers had been working on!

Later in March, we were joined at rehearsal by an all-round talented musician and barbershop star – Alex Morris (in main pic, with chorus members)! Alex visited us from Melbourne to impart his wisdom and fresh ideas for our competition songs, which we are due to submit for judging in May.

We got into the groove with some clicking activities (who knew there were so many ways to click?) and played around with swipes and rhythms. We had such a fun night and appreciate Alex travelling so far to spend time with us! Thanks also to Sweet Adelines Australia for their amazing Regional Education Faculty program, which gives choruses around the country great coaching opportunities like this!

Other highlights of recent weeks have been our celebrations of member achievements. Baritones Mary and Ainslie recently received pins to mark 15 years and 10 years, respectively, as members of Sweet Adelines International! We also presented another baritone – section leader, Kym – with a Blue Sky Harmony tote bag to commemorate one year since joining Sweet Adelines International. And finally, tenor Michelle received a thank-you pin from Sweet Adelines Australia for her services to the organisation in 2021. We love to shine a spotlight on our fabulous members and their achievements – congratulations!
 

       
Michelle and Ainslie with their new pins                      Mary with her 15-year pin and Kym with her new bag!

Blue Skies Smiling at Us...

   

Musical Director Julie Edwards has been at the helm of Blue Sky Harmony since our formation in 2019. An important step in the journey of musical directors associated with Sweet Adelines International is obtaining their certification with by completing the Director Certification Program. 

This educational program is designed to provide additional training and further develop skills for Sweet Adelines International directors, potential directors and musical leaders. The program provides opportunities to validate the skills and knowledge required to direct a Sweet Adelines chorus. 

Topics covered in this training program include vocal production, music theory, analytical listening, judging categories and competition, rehearsal planning and implementation, conducting and management. Julie is a registered teacher and qualified trainer, and has wealth of musical experience through singing in choirs and quartets, playing instruments, and holding leadership roles in barbershop ensembles for many years. Achieving her director certification with Sweet Adelines International is the icing on the cake, and this milestone also opens the door for Julie to receive honours in future national competitions if our chorus reaches certain score levels. 

Blue Sky Harmony is extremely proud of Julie for putting in the time and effort to complete the Director Certification Program - we couldn't ask for a more dedicated musical leader!

Reflections on 2021

Happy New Year! 2021 was another big year for Blue Sky Harmony. These were some of the highlights:

- We appointed Karen Magno as an Assistant Director, joining Jess Harriden and Julie Edwards on our music team

- We enjoyed several chorus social events - an afternoon tea soiree, karaoke sessions and group dinners

- We hosted Sequins and Songs - a networking and performance event for quartets in South-East Queensland (and beyond!)

- We received coaching from Linda Wareham, Vicki Dwyer and Kelly Shepard

- We competed in our first barbershop contest, placing second in our division, with the third-highest score across all divisions

- We chartered as a chorus with Sweet Adelines International! 🎉

- We were the inaugural recipients of the Lindsey Dyer Achievement Award

- We worked with Brisbane songwriters to record vocals for two new songs

- We changed rehearsal venue, from Nundah to Everton Park, and moved from Thursday night to Wednesday night rehearsals!

- We recorded a video of Solstice Carole for the Australian National Choral Association's virtual Christmas concert

- We performed at community events and private functions

- We were supported by The Lord Mayor's Community Fund to purchase sound equipment

- We were joined by eight new members! It feels like some have been with us forever, and we can't wait to get to know others better in 2022.

We've put together a photo collage (below) showing some happy moments from the past year. We wish you all the best for 2022! 
 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Blue Sky Harmony finished off 2021 with performances and some fun social activities. In November, we learnt a new holiday song – Solstice Carole by Kim Baryluk. We recorded a track at rehearsal and then filmed some footage to accompany it for the Australian National Choral Association’s Spirit of Song virtual Christmas concert. While filming in Teralba Park at Everton Park, we also took advantage of the goregous light to take some new photos of chorus members (including the main picture for this post).

Our version of Solstice Carole is about the spirit of the summer solstice. The solstice occurs just before Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere, and is celebrated in many ways across different cultures. We love the symbolism of the triumph of lightness over darkness, and we certainly made some joyful memories while putting this together! You can watch our video here. 

 
Behind the scenes, filming our video for 'Solstice Carole' in Everton Park

A small group from Blue Sky Harmony brought some festive cheer to an event hosted by Brisbane's Living Heritage Network at Miegunyah House Museum. This unique event was the 'Once Upon a Dickens Christmas Soirée', and we loved performing in such a gorgeous, historic location. Shortly after this performance, we sang in a more relaxed atmosphere, thanks to karaoke night at our old local pub at Nundah. We managed to gather a bit of a fan club, and immediately decided to plan another karaoke night at a member’s house to sing in the new year!

  
Performing at Miegunyah House Museum for the 'Once Upon a Dickens Christmas Soiree'

At our final rehearsal for the year, we enjoyed watching the Spirit of Song concert, which had been released earlier in the day. We had a good laugh as we relived the filming of our own video submission, and thoroughly enjoyed the other performances by choirs across Queensland. We spotted our friends at Hervey Bay A Cappella Bay Singers, whose song was directed by our own Musical Director, Julie Edwards. They recorded their performance at their recent chorus retreat.

We finished the year on a high by welcoming three new members – first Kerry, and then Pearl and Sharon. Kerry joins our bass section, Pearl is singing tenor and Sharon is our newest baritone. Luckily there is plenty of time for these fab new members to learn our repertoire over the holidays – we can’t wait to sing with them in 2022.

 
Left:  Kerry (pictured centre) joined basses Kat and Jess as a chorus member at our last rehearsal for 2021. Right:  Pearl (right) and Sharon (left) sent us some holiday snaps, as they became members shortly after we finished for the year. 

Honouring Local Volunteers

On 14 November, Blue Sky Harmony performed at the Everton Volunteer Awards, hosted by Tim Mander MP, State Member for Everton. These awards are presented annually to acknowledge the hard-working volunteers in our community for their work across community organisations, schools and sporting clubs.

The major award-winner this year was Charles Tibbets, President of Everton Wolves Junior Australian Football Club, with awards also going to volunteers from Arana Hills SES, Lions Club of Brisbane Bunya, Albany Creek Brumbies Junior Rugby Club, and Everton Park State School P&C Association. There were many more nominees from organisations that do incredible work, and we congratulate them all!

Blue Sky Harmony was proud to entertain the volunteers, their supporters, and honourable guests including Cr Tracy Davis, Councillor for McDowall Ward. We sang to open the awards ceremony, during the break, and then at the start of the second session – we had everyone clapping along!

We always love to perform at community events like this one. We’re not your usual choir, and we can tailor a set to suit almost any event! Contact us if you’d like to enquire about Blue Sky Harmony performing at your event.

Recording Stars and Making New Friends

Back in July, Blue Sky Harmony made the move from Nundah to Everton Park, after nearly 2 years of rehearsing in the historic Toombul Shire Hall. Not only that, we shifted rehearsal nights from Thursdays to Wednesdays – something that still confuses some of us (often we think it’s still Friday on the day after rehearsal, which leads to disappointment).

On our last night in Nundah, we turned Toombul Shire Hall into a recording studio to work on a project with Brisbane composers Dyson & Young and Musical Menus. It was a fitting send-off for this beautiful venue, and we had a lot of laughs in the process!
 
Blue Sky Harmony recording artists, with Brisbane-based songwriter Donna Dyson (right pic, left of front row)

Shortly after moving to Everton Park Bowls and Community Club, we welcomed members of our new community to our A Cappella Open Night and Showcase. We had more than 20 registrants, and despite the mask-wearing requirements that were brought in shortly before the event, we had an excellent turn-out on the night. A great time was had by all, and a small number of visitors decided to take part in the audition process. Unfortunately the audition process was interrupted by lockdowns and subsequent venue restrictions, but eventually we were thrilled to welcome new member Clytie to our lead section!

New member Clytie with Membership Coordinator Michelle - socially distanced

In September, we were finally able to see the end product of our fun night of recording at Toombuls Shire Hall, as ‘Let Us Rejoice’ was released. This uplifting, joyful celebration of music (song by Craig Allister Young and Donna Dyson, features soloist Lana Tukaroa and eight choirs from around Brisbane.  Check out the video here - it'll put a smile on your face for the rest of the day! See if you can spot us in the clip. If you are able to support Upbeat Arts, you can buy the track via: craigallisteryoung.bandcamp.com.

Blue Sky Harmony Welcomes Singers to Try A Cappella

We are opening our rehearsal on Wednesday 20 October from 7–9pm to connect with people who love to sing!  Whether you're an experienced singer who is looking for something fresh and new, or someone with minimal group singing experience, we welcome you to this event.

Our guests will be involved in warm-ups and then learn part of a song with us, before being entertained by a short showcase performance from Blue Sky Harmony.  This will give you a taste of our style of a cappella music, and we know that one you hear it - and try singing it yourself - you'll be hooked!  

We're not a regular choir - we sing contemporary music in four-part harmony, incorporate physical expression into our songs (no stiff singers here), and we strive for continuous improvement. We bring in experts in the field to coach us several times a year, and love to perform and share our music with the community. Our arrangments suit all vocal ranges, so if you have a voice that is too high for a standard choral alto part, our bass lines will make you feel right at home! If you love those high notes, we also have a part that's perfect for you - plus melody and harmony parts in the mid-ranges. There really is something for every singer! 

After this open night, we know you'll love our style of a cappella, so information about how to join our group will be available. We are an auditioned ensemble suitable for experienced singers, but we also welcome people who don't have singing experience - if you can hold your part, you can learn the rest. You don't need to read sheet music, as learning tracks are also available for the songs that we sing.

If you haven't sung in a group since school, now is the time to come back to singing!  Or if you're singing with another choir but looking for the next step, we could be the perfect vocal ensemble for you! Blue Sky Harmony is open-minded and inclusive of people from all walks of life. Register for this free event today - we can't wait to meet you!

Blue Sky Harmony Joins Sweet Adelines International and Wins Award

We are thrilled to have become a chartered chorus of Sweet Adelines International on the 24th of May! In March 2020, we had sufficient members to charter after less than a year as a chorus, and were deciding whether or not to put our paperwork in before the planned Sweet Adelines Australia Regional Convention in Hobart in May 2020. Soon after, the decision was made for us, as the pandemic threw the world into a state of limbo. Although we were held up for a year in achieving our goal of chartering, we knew our chorus would persevere and thrive. This is our passion! Many of us are long-time barbershoppers, while others have recently discovered their love of this art form and have absolutely embraced it. It's wonderful to finally be official Sweet Adelines. 

       

Why are we so excited to be part of this organisation? Because it is one of the world's largest singing organisations for women and people of diverse genders, with the vision of elevating singers worldwide through education, performance, and competition in barbershop harmony and a cappella music. Through the amazing resources and network provided by Sweet Adelines International and Sweet Adelines Australia, we are always learning, having new experiences and meeting new like-minded people. 

Performing at the Barbershop Harmony Australia Sunshine Region Convention recently was a fabulous introduction into the wider barbershop community, and we can't wait to attend our first Sweet Adelines convention in Adelaide next year. Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far - we truly appreciate it!  We are so proud of the culture we have created and look forward to continuing to learn, grow, perform and make connections through music.

To add to an already exciting week, we were honoured to be announced as the inaugural winner of the Lindsey Dyer Acheivement Award. This award was established in memory of the late Lindsey Dyer, who was a passionate leader within Sweet Adelines Australia. Lindsey contributed to the organisation in many ways: as an eight-time winning bass in three champion quartets, Master Co-Director of a champion chorus, a founding Director of two choruses, a member of the Regional Education Faculty, Education Coordinator, Directors' Coordinator, a mentor, coach, and friend to many. 

 

The award is open to choruses and quartets which, over the last year, have worked to improve their performance and skills while upholding the values of Sweet Adelines International in Australia. This may be demonstrated by consistent attendance at regional education events, working with Regional Education Faculty and/or coaches, engagement with the community, positive group culture and, most of all, a love of barbershop with demonstrable initiative and commitment to the values of Sweet Adelines International.

We felt that we have shown all of the above attributes over the past year, and submitted a nomination in March. We are extremely honoured to have been announced as the winners at the Sweet Adelines Australia Regional Awards Ceremony on Sunday. Thank you to Annette Connolly-Dyer, Lindsey's wife, for donating this beautiful trophy - we will cherish it over the next year and look forward to seeing who the next recipient will be! 

Blue Sky Harmony's Convention Debut

We had an amazing time at the Barbershop Harmony Australia Sunshine Region Convention on the 22nd of May, at Venue 114 in Bokarina, Sunshine Coast.  This convention is run by the local branch of the Australian men's barbershop association, and Sweet Adelines International choruses (like ours) are invited along.  As we haven't been able to attend a barbershop convention since 2019, all attendees were extremely excited to get together again to do what we love - perform and listen to amazing music! 

Our chorus was so warmly welcomed by the local barbershop community, and we sang up a storm - both on-stage and at the afterglow (after-party, filled with spontaneous singing)!  We were thrilled to not only place second in the invitational division (congratulations to first-placed Redland Rhapsody Chorus), but also achieve the third-highest score of the event, with only 12 singers on stage. We loved watching all the other choruses compete, and also enjoyed the quartet competition. Two Blue Skyers were lucky enough to cross the stage a second time, as part of Luminous Quartet. They lit up the stage and gave us goosebumps! We can't wait to see what they do next.

   

One of the great parts of any convention is the opportunity to spend time with chorus members outside of rehearsal. We enjoyed meals together, walks on the beach, and lots of chats over a few beverages. We are lucky to have close friendships within the chorus, and trips like these strengthen those ties. 

   

This was the first convention experience for five of our members, and for the rest it was a much-awaited return to our happy place! We are thankful to Barbershop Harmony Australia for giving us the opportunity to join in the fun. Although our Musical Director, Julie, has performed in many conventions in the past, this was her first in the role of Musical Director.  She certainly impressed!  Thanks to Julie's calm, thoughtful and positive leadership, Blue Sky Harmony had a truly joyful first convention experience.

Fun in May

We had a fantastic few days last week with coach Linda Wareham - Musical Director of Northern Beaches Chorus and Coastal a Cappella Chorus in NSW, and member of the Sweet Adelines Australia Regional Education Faculty.  Linda's visit was partially to assess us muscially as part of chartering as a Sweet Adelines chorus, and partly to help us prepare our contest package for the upcoming Barbershop Harmony Australia Sunshine Region Convention. 


                    Performing at Toombul Shire Hall for Linda Wareham as part of the chartering process

On Thursday night, we put on a performance for our muscal assessment, then worked on our ballad,  At Last, which probably best known for the amazing version by Etta James. There were trio coaching sessions on Saturday, and then on Sunday we had all-day coaching as a full chorus (minus our travellers and those away due to ill health). We worked a little more on At Last, and also polished our uptune, Bobby Darin's As Long As I'm Singing.

  
 Linda with the chorus after rehearsal on Thursday          Linda with Team Coordinator Nat and Director Julie

One of the highlights of the Sunday session was that we had risers! It was a first for Blue Sky Harmony, and wow - what a difference it made! After a fantastic day of singing, we had a lovely dinner and some drinks as a chorus. We can't thank Linda enough for a wonderful weekend of singing. She was a pleasure to work with and brought our contest songs along in leaps and bounds. 

As well as our recent coaching, we have some exciting membership news. We are proud to introduce our newest member, Kym, pictured here with Membership Coordinator Michelle. Michelle is presenting Kym with her Blue Sky Harmony phonation straw. Yes, we all have one... Kym is a fantastic baritone, and we're thrilled that she has joined us!

          
      Membership Coordinator Michelle with new member Kym      Michelle with her (purposely poorly made) certificate

Another recent highlight for our chorus was the announcement of member Michelle (the other one) as the Sweet Adeline of the Year of 'Chapter-At-Large'. This is the group that we're members of until we charter as an official chorus. Michelle was nominated for her work serving Sweet Adelines Australia as the Team Coordinator of the Regional Management Team, and for strengthening ties in the local barbershop community with the quartet networking event Sequins and Songs. Congratulations Michelle! 
 

Welcoming New Members 

At Blue Sky Harmony, we’re always looking for singers to join our ranks. Our membership process changes from time-to-time, but involves attending rehearsals for a number of weeks and learning an audition song with the chorus. There is no requirement to be able to read sheet music – we learn from a combination of sheet music and learning tracks. We seek singers who can learn their part independently and sing with good pitch accuracy, rhythm and vocal production. We are also looking for people who can perform the song with audience engagement and appropriate natural body movement.

As well as musical requirements, we get to know potential new members during their time with us, to see if they are willing to attend regular rehearsals and participate in all aspects of rehearsal, demonstrate a love of learning (including openness to receiving feedback and implementing strategies to improve), and are able to work as part of a team. For our chorus, it is critical that members are supportive and encouraging of each other, as we are proud of our positive and inclusive culture.

We are thrilled to announce that we are welcoming THREE new members to Blue Sky Harmony – Mandy, Jess and Gracie. Not only do these singers have beautiful voices, but we have seen that they embody the values of Blue Sky Harmony. Mandy joins our bass section, while Gracie and Jess are singing lead. Much like the rest of our chorus, these three members came to Blue Sky Harmony with different levels of musical training and experience, and have completely embraced our unique style of a cappella music. We know they will be valuable members of our choir, and we can't wait to get know know them even better.

We look forward to welcoming more new members over the coming months!

A Great Start to 2021

Although we’ve had a couple of bumps in the road this year due to COVID-19, Blue Sky Harmony has had a fantastic 2021 so far! 

In mid-January, our leadership teams attended the Sweet Adelines Australia Directors’ School. This educational event is run each year to support Musical Directors from around Australia, and this year the event was held online. It had a general leadership focus, as well as including a musical education stream, so our Management Team and Music Team members were able to be involved in the various classes. The theme of the weekend was 'Revive and Thrive', with a wide range of interesting content presented.

Shortly after, we announced the appointment of Karen Magno to the position of Assistant Director, joining our directing team of Julie Edwards and Jessica Harriden. Karen has been a member of Sweet Adelines International for 21 years, and we are thrilled that she has taken on the role of Assistant Director at Blue Sky Harmony. You can read Karen’s full biography on our Directors’ page.

Over the past few months, we have continued to work on a competition package, with the goal of competing at the Barbershop Harmony Australia Sunshine Region Convention in May. Since travel has been a bit unpredictable, it has been challenging to organise in-person coaching to assist us with contest preparations. However, on the 11th of March, we were joined via Zoom by Vicki Dwyer – Regional Education Faculty member and Master Director of Circular Keys Chorus in Sydney. 

Vicki’s visit was even more successful than we had envisioned, with no tech disasters, and now we have some fantastic interpretation ideas from Vicki for one of our contest songs. We finished the night with a drink at our local with some lovely prospective members of our choir. It would have been even better if Vicki could have been there for that part - hopefully sometime in future! We are looking forward to another visit from Vicki in the near future.

Another highlight of the year so far has been Sequins and Songs. This event made its return after taking a year off due to the pandemic. It was a social and singing opportunity, which brought together members of eight choruses, from the Sunshine Coast to Ballina, and it was a joy to catch up with so many barbershop-lovers.

Reflections on an Unusual Year

A few months ago, we weren’t sure what we’d be doing during the festive season – would we be singing in the community, like in a normal year, or would we be hiding out in our homes? Thank goodness COVID-19 stayed under control in Brisbane, allowing us to polish our seasonal repertoire and prepare for a number of performances. 

We were thrilled to be part of Christmas on Queen – a series of pop-up performances in Queen Street Mall.  Over five dates in December, we sang for twenty 30-minute sets in different parts of the mall! Not only did this allow us to bring Christmassy vibes to shoppers and passers-by, but it also brought us together with other local artists. We loved seeing the other choirs and dancing groups performing over the course of the month – there is so much talent in this city!

Performing outdoors in summer is always a challenge, and this year we had the additional risk management requirements due to COVID-19. But we didn't let the heat, rain, occasional illnesses, or self-isolation of members dampen our holiday mood! We are proud of our members for being enthusiastic, independent singers who always rise to the occasion.

    
             Christmas on Queen 2020 - thanks to Ibis Music Photography for sharing their beautiful photos with us!

Straight after Christmas, we were invited to send four singers to the ABC Brisbane studio to talk about our choir’s recent International Barbershop Tag Competition win. A quartet featuring our two longest-serving Sweet Adelines and our two newest Sweet Adelines performed live on air – what a way to round out the year!

Although 2020 presented some challenges, including rehearsing via Zoom for 3 months, we were extremely fortunate overall. We attended a wonderful coaching retreat, performed face-to-face on several occasions, made videos, held social events, gained new members, won a competition, celebrated our first birthday, and - best of all - were able to sing together for most of the year.

Nobody knows what the coming year will bring, but we look forward to making new memories with our chorus friends and supporters. Happy New Year, everyone!

    
Karen, Nat, Hayley and Michelle in the ABC studio, and outside the studio after a successful interview and performance

Memorable Moments for Blue Sky Harmony

Earlier this month, our choir members returned to Maleny in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, where we had our retreat in March, for another memorable weekend.  

On the Friday night, we celebrated the 50th birthday of our jazzy lead and team coordinator, Nat. Being a talented cook, Nat treated us all to a beautiful dinner, while we enjoyed the spectacular views from The Ridge at Maleny. Then we sang and danced the night away!

  
                           Nat's 50th birthday party at The Ridge, Maleny                                         A celebratory afternoon

The following day, we travelled to Secrets on the Lake at Montville for yet another big occasion – the wedding of our gorgeous baritone, finance manager and pitch piper extraordinaire, Ainslie. We were honoured to sing ‘At Last’ while Ainslie walked down the aisle towards her love, Tere, surrounded by family and friends. The couple’s vows were as beautiful as the scenery, and there was not a dry eye in the audience! We couldn't be happier for these two amazing people, who were clearly made for each other. More feasting and dancing followed – of course!

To top off this jam-packed weekend, on Sunday we braved the heat and kicked off the festive season with a performance in Queen Street Mall. It's always a thrill to see the smiles appear on shoppers' faces as they hear our harmonies. The memories of this wonderful weekend will surely last a lifetime.

  
       Performing 'At Last' during Ainslie and Tere's wedding                Drinks and canapes after the wedding ceremony

Chorus Champions

In early November, Blue Sky Harmony decided to take part in the BarbershopTags.com International Tag Competition - a video entry competition sponsored by HarmonySite (which provides our website platform).

For those of you who aren't familiar with barbershop music, the tag is the final section of a song, and it contains the most exciting chords. Barbershoppers often teach and learn tags at social events and workshops - it is an easy way to collaborate with other singers, and also gain skills in learning a piece of music quickly, by ear. Since tags are generally very interesting in terms of their musical structure, performing them is also a way for groups to show their skill and vocal range.

Our Musical Director chose a fabulous tag for us, called Touch The Sky - from the Disney movie Brave - and we planned to record on the 5th of November. Unfortunately, two of our members caught colds and we didn't have enough singers to meet the minimum requirement of 14 voices. We didn't think we would have another opportunity before entries closed. 

Fortunately, we noticed that we had a full contingent of Blue Skyers on the 19th, and sent around a last-minute email asking members to bring their costumes so we could give it one final shot. We thought we would have to cancel again when a member became ill, but thankfully a lovely past member stepped in to sing in her place. 

We learnt the tag, recorded a few takes, and then continued with our rehearsal - happy that we had at least given it a red hot go. A couple of weeks later, we were excited to learn that we had made the shortlist in the chorus division. Having the opportunity for our performance to be reviewed by the judging panel was a goal of ours. The competition was tight, with many other fantastic entries - some multi-track recordings, and others filmed live. 

On Saturday the 5th of December, the winners were announced. Blue Sky Harmony was spending the weekend in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, in Maleny, when our Musical Director read the news - we had won our division! What an absolute thrill for our small choir! We felt so lucky to be together to celebrate this amazing achievement, and are proud that the judges enjoyed what we had put together. We feel that our entry expresses who we are as a chorus.

To top it all off, the first prize is $1000 USD, which will allow us to pay for expert coaching and new music in 2021. This money will have a significant impact on our chorus's life in the coming year, and we are thankful to HarmonySite and BarbershopTags.com for running the competition. 

To see the videos of the finalists and winners in each division, visit BarbershopTags.com. If you'd like to check out our video via YouTube, you can find it here. 

Congratulations to Luminous Quartet, whose lead and tenor are in Blue Sky Harmony. This up-and-coming quartet came sixth in the 'one take recording, one voice per part' category, with their rendition of After Today. They also submitted the tag from Somewhere. 

We also send a special shout-out to our two Michelles, who submitted two multi-track tags - Beyond the Sea and Jolene. Although neither was short-listed, the Michelles enjoyed collaborating on these songs and learnt a lot from the experience. 

Luminous Quartet performing After Today


Blue Sky Michelles performing Beyond the Sea

 

Add a Little Magic to Your Event!

It may not feel like it, but the festive season is right around the corner! Where has 2020 gone? Luckily, this is one of our favourite times of the year, when we get the opportunity to perform for a wide range of audiences and share the harmonies that we are addicted to creating! 

Blue Sky Harmony has recently been working on our holiday repertoire, including classic carols and new favourites. Our varied song list will be polished and ready for community carols, corporate functions, Christmas markets, private parties, and any other performance requests that we are able to accomodate. 

Our a cappella group loves to sing for an audience, and our harmonies will add some sparkle to any festive event! Please note that our calendar fills up quickly, so if you would like our choir to perform at your function, please contact us soon. We are able to tailor a package to suit your event, so let's start the conversation today! 

For more information and contact details for our Events Coordinator, visit our Book Us! page. 

Re-connecting and Celebrating 

In September and October, we've continued in-person rehearsals, but not without a few challenges. Due to a small outbreak of COVID-19 on the other side of Brisbane, we had to bring in a restriction on numbers attending rehearsals for a few weeks - a maximum of 10 singers were allowed in our venue. We took it in turns to have a night off, so nobody missed out on multiple rehearsals. Our members continue to be vigilant by not attending when sick, maintaining an appropriate distance from each other, using hand sanitiser, and we always keep a register of attendance. 

Despite the ongoing threat of COVID-19, we've had a wonderful couple of months and were lucky enough to welcome an amazing new member, Mary, in September. Mary is a beautiful baritone who recently moved to Queensland after years of singing with Endeavour Harmony Chorus. We're thrilled that she has found a new home with us.  
 

Mary receives her Blue Sky Harmony name badge from Julie (from a safe distance!)

During this period, we have taken the opportunity to re-connect socially with our chorus friends, with a group dinner at our local pub. There is never enough time to chat to everyone, so we'll be having another get-together soon!

We've also had cause to celebrate some milestones, presenting longevity pins to three talented choir members. Katrina has been a member of Sweet Adelines International for 10 years, Natalie for 15 years, and Karen has spent a whopping 20 years in choruses all over the country! Congratulations to these three fine singers on many years of creating beautiful barbershop harmonies! On the same night, we also wished our dedicated Musical Director, Julie, a very happy birthday.  
 

Milestones! Clockwise from top left: Katrina (10 years), Natalie (15 years), Karen (20 years), and Julie (birthday)

As the festive season is drawing near, we have started working on our Christmas repertoire! There are lots of new songs to keep us busy, and we've been polishing a few old favourites. We hope to have the opportunity to sing for the community, if Queensland stays on track with COVID control. If all goes well, you'll see some carolling photos here in the coming months! 

Featured image:  Blue Sky Harmony members catching up at The Royal, Nundah

August A Cappella - via Zoom!

In normal years, members of Sweet Adelines Australia are given the opportunity to attend a number of educational events throughout the year. Due to the pandemic, this year’s ‘August A Cappella’ workshop was moved online, and a number of Blue Sky Harmony members were excited to be involved – as an attendee, panel member or organiser.

Sessions included: how to run online personal vocal instruction sessions, the interpretation of barbershop arrangements, myths and misconceptions of the mixed voice, and mental training for singers. Blue Sky Harmony member Liliana, who is a member of the Sweet Adelines Australia Regional Education Faculty, was part of a Q&A session on ‘All Things Visual’, and other Q&A sessions were run on arranging, quartetting, and being an Assistant Director.

 
The All Things Visual Q&A Session featured Blue Sky Harmony member Liliana Macarone, along with other visual experts Debra Griffiths and Melanie Mapleson

An absolute highlight of the all-day event was receiving education from International Faculty members Peggy Gram (USA) and Britt-Heléne Bonnedahl (Sweden). Having such top-notch international educators be part of this event – in addition to our Australian Regional Education Faculty – was very special. And all this for only $20! Being part of Sweet Adelines International really provides excellent value for money. Blue Sky Harmony members had a great day of learning and networking with other singers, and can't wait for the next online education event.


Sweet Adelines Australia members enjoying the expertise of Britt-Heléne Bonnedahl, legendary director of Rönninge Show Chorus, as she presented her 'Mental Training for Singers' class.

Around the country, many choirs are still unable to sing together due to high community spread of COVID-19. We’re lucky that Queensland currently has minimal community spread. At Blue Sky Harmony, we’re rehearsing using COVIDsafe practices, with limited numbers, wide spacing, the use of hand sanitiser, and strict limitations on attendance if a member is unwell. As we are a small chorus that does not stand on risers, we are able to minimise our risk in a number of ways. However, taking part in any group activity at this time does carry a risk.

We are still welcoming new potential members, but we have revised our visitor policy in light of the current COVID-19 restrictions. So if you’re interested in visiting us, please make sure you get in touch with our Membership Coordinator, Courtney, to find out when you can visit and what the restrictions currently are. Please don’t turn up to a rehearsal without making prior arrangements, as we will likely not be able to let you join in, which would be disappointing for all of us! Thank you for your understanding.


Featured image:  Sweet Adelines International Faculty member Peggy Gram, delivering her class on how to conduct an online 'personal vocal instruction' session. 

Blue Sky Harmony Returns to Rehearsals

With no recent community transmission of COVID-19 in Brisbane, we decided to go back to in-person rehearsals in our regular venue on the 2nd of July. As we are a small chorus based in a very large hall, we can take appropriate precautions to minimise the risk of transferring the virus, such as sanitising hands on entry and exit, maintaining appropriate physical distance throughout the rehearsal, and keeping all doors and windows open. We are lucky that Brisbane generally has mild winters, as we would otherwise freeze!

The downside of this new setup is that we can hear the trains loud and clear as they rattle past, but it is a small price to pay for being able to join our voices together again to create beautiful harmonies. We've spent our first rehearsals back learning a new song for a very special occasion later this year, and we're making the most of our precious time together in case we need to go back into isolation again.  

At this stage, we're opening our doors to visitors, including potential new members, from the 6th of August onwards.  We would love to have some new singers join us as we continue our musical journey. For more information about singing with us, visit our Becoming a Member page.

We know that not all singing groups are as fortunate as us, and are maintaining online rehearsals for the foreseeable future.  We send our love to all those groups, and wish them strength until they can safely sing together again. 

Chorus Life During the Pandemic

Similarly to other singing groups around the world, life in Blue Sky Harmony has been significantly different throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Although we haven’t been able to sing together in the same room, we have continued to stay connected through online methods, and engage in additional learning opportunities. Some of our members have even taken the opportunity to participate in new musical endeavours! 

As our rehearsals moved to the Zoom meeting platform, we have utilised some fabulous video resources during our weekly sessions, and we’ve included guest presenters in our schedule. Voice teacher and fellow barbershopper Nicky McGrath shared her expertise on how to sing with no filter. Our goal is to express ourselves through our singing, so that we can form genuine connections with our audiences. Nicky’s presentation prompted some great thoughts and discussion on this topic.

Additional workshops have been run by our Chorus Health Coordinator, Kate, who is a mental health occupational therapist and brings an amazing skill set to our chorus. Kate has facilitated discussions and given presentations on topics such as how to turn your inner critic into an inner coach.

  

Another fun rehearsal activity was our ‘Blue Sky Harmony Talent Challenge’, in which members shared some of their diverse talents. One played a haunting original instrumental piece, another showed us her rendition of the Napoleon Dynamite dance, and another presented a flashback to a hilarious character from a past chorus retreat skit. We were also treated to a couple of hilarious isolation-themed parody songs!

Outside of rehearsals, several members have been taking part in virtual choirs that include members from all over the world!  Here are the finished products so far:

-  Close To You by The Carpenters

-  Waltzing Matilda, performed with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for Anzac Day

-  Heroes by David Bowie

-  All My Trials by Norman Luboff

-  Love’s in Need of Love Today by Stevie Wonder

-  And So It Goes by Billy Joel, featuring the King’s Singers

-  O Radiant Dawn by James MacMillan, featuring The Sixteen (video to be released)

-  You’re All I Need to Get By, by Marvin Gaye, featuring The Swingles (video to be released)

-  Adiemus by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins (video to be released)

  

Our Musical Director, Julie, has been using this time to undertake professional development activities through a term of voice lessons with Nicky McGrath. Julie was awarded these lessons through the Miss Hebden Scholarship, which was created in memory of the late Barbara Hebden OAM – a well-loved musician, teacher and arts reviewer. The term of lessons with Nicky has allowed Julie to not only explore her own voice, but also discuss vocal pedagogy concepts that she will be able to bring to future chorus rehearsals.

As COVID-19 cases continue to decrease in Brisbane, we are feeling more positive about the future and we look forward to returning to in-person rehearsals soon. 

  
Nicky McGrath and Julie Edwards                        Chorus social get-together via Zoom

Reflections on Blue Sky Harmony’s First Year

Just one year ago, a small group of singers got together for a cup of tea and a chat about an exciting idea – starting a new chorus! We shared our individual stories of the amazing things that barbershop singing had brought to our lives so far, what our goals were for the future, and what we believed we could each contribute to this project.

Although we were nameless that day, the concept of blue skies was touched on. Blue skies. Joy. Opportunity. Sunny Queensland. So many positive themes. The name ‘Blue Sky Harmony’ was soon chosen by our chorus, and approved by Sweet Adelines International - the global singing organisation that we are part of.

Since our first meeting, it has been full steam ahead for our motivated members. During our first nine months as a chorus, we welcomed several talented new members, ran a successful community a cappella singing workshop, had our first public performance, completed an exciting carolling season (including our inaugural Blue Sky Harmony Christmas Concert), and had a productive retreat in Maleny.

Unfortunately the pandemic then struck and derailed some of our plans, such as performing at our first Sweet Adelines Australia regional convention in Hobart, and running our quartet event – Sequins and Songs. Our choir has rolled with the punches, taking our rehearsals online and setting our sights on Sweet Adelines Australia convention in Adelaide in 2021. We couldn't celebrate our first birthday with a party, so our Musical Director, Julie, baked us all cupcakes instead – delivered with the help of bass Katrina. What a wonderful surprise!

Over the past year, we’ve received wonderful coaching from many experts:  Glenda Lloyd, Rose McGee, Lea Baker, Jill Harris (who later joined our chorus), Bec Hewitt and Nicky McGrath. In addition, our members have taken advantage of many in-person and online workshops to further our skills.

Although we’ve had to take a few months off from in-person rehearsals, we’re in this for the long haul and we know we have a great deal more to achieve together. The sky is the limit!

Sweet Adelines Australia Hosts Online Convention

Blue Sky Harmony is a prospective chorus of Sweet Adelines International – a wordwide singing organisation with more than 20 000 members. Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, our chorus was working towards performing at the Australian national convention in Hobart in mid-May. As events around the world were cancelled, we sadly had to cancel our quartet event, ‘Sequins and Songs’ (planned for 21st March) and shortly after, we realised that the convention could not proceed. It was quite a blow, after coming off the high of our amazing retreat in Maleny. We were loving our songs and excited to share our performance with the Australian barbershop community. Of course, it was not safe for mass gathering such as this, and we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to wait another year.

Then in April, we heard news that Sweet Adelines Australia was planning an online convention – dubbed the ‘UnConvention’ for Saturday 16th May. This event would have many of the elements of a normal convention – an opening ceremony, quartet and chorus performances, an evening concert of the best ensembles, an afterparty, and education classes. Every chorus and quartet (past or present) was welcome to submit a video of two songs. We knew we had to put in an entry! Being less than a year old, we didn’t have a lot of footage to choose from, but we found two videos of past performances and put together a compilation.

On the day of the UnConvention, many of us tuned into the webcast, hosted by members of Hobart Harmony Chorus, who were introducing performances from a live studio in Hobart (of course, the hosts were appropriately physically distanced from each other). Some of us took the opportunity to ‘bling up’, putting on a nice outfit or some glamorous earrings – a true novelty after spending the better part of the last two months at home. One of the wonderful features of the day was the UnConvention Facebook group, with more than 700 members from all over the country, sharing photos, stories of past conventions, and sending shout-outs to friends.

Chorus member Michelle was on the UnConvention Planning Committee, due to her role as Team Coordinator of Sweet Adelines Australia. She presented a welcome video, introduced a slideshow of the highlights from the past year (the 30^th anniversary of Sweet Adelines Australia), and announced the first two inductees into the Hall of Fame. We were proud to have a member of Blue Sky Harmony so involved in this event. We were also extremely proud of two of our members, who were recognised for achieving significant longevity milestones during the opening ceremony. Jill has been a member of Sweet Adelines International for 25 years, and Karen has been a member for 20 years. 

Next up we thoroughly enjoyed the quartet and chorus performances – some real highlights from past conventions, and also some original pieces created during isolation via some fancy video editing. Very impressive! Then it was time for our performance – and wow, we didn’t expect the reaction we received! So many people sent us lovely comments on the Facebook group, and commented that they were excited to see what was next for our chorus. We felt extremely welcomed into this community of singers.

After the performance sets were over, we tuned into the evening’s ‘Parade of Champions’, to watch videos of past quartet and chorus champions. Performances to aspire to. Some of us finished off the day at the Zoom afterparty. A party for nearly 100 people sounds like an odd thing to run on Zoom, but with a rotation of sing-alongs (on mute, of course), dancing, and small break-out groups to catch up with other singers, it worked really well!

UnConvention is something that we’ll remember for years to come. We truly hope that COVID-19 can be beaten with a vaccine soon, so that UnConvention doesn’t need to become a regular replacement for a real-life convention. But if we have to wait a little longer to sing on stage in front of hundreds of other barbershoppers, UnConvention will go a long way to filling some of the hole in our chorus lives and lifting our spirits.

Honing our Craft in the Mountains

We felt very lucky last weekend to spend the weekend at The Ridge at Maleny, working on our competition songs and also taking some time to connect as a chorus. Coach Glenda Lloyed travelled up from Canberra to join us in the stunning surrounds of Booroobin, and we are so appreciative of the support she continues to provide to our choir. 

Not only did Glenda help us in unifying our vocal production (by ditching any unnecessary vocal manipulation), she also arranged a stunning new ending for our contest ballad, and switched up some of the chords in other sections of the song. We can't wait to sing it for our family, friends, and fellow barbershoppers!

  

Aside from some glorious singing, we were thankful for the opportunity to relax with a few drinks and some delicious food while we took in the sweeping mountain views. There was quartetting, guitar sing-alongs, and a bit of group 'tagging' (where one person teaches the end of a song - the tag - in four parts).  We have a very talented group!

   

The Sunday of our retreat fell on International Women's Day, so we decided to mark the occasion with a flash-mob! We headed to the markets in Maleny, sang Glenda's fabulous arrangement of the iconic Helen Reddy anthem 'I Am Woman', and then we disappeared as quickly as we'd arrived! We then held a celebratory lunch at Hotel Maleny.

   

We are so appreciative of being part of this chorus, and being able to take part in lovely experiences such as retreat.  Huge thanks go to Glenda, our Musical Director, Julie, and our Team Coordinator, Natalie, for helping to create such a memorable weekend!

Getting Jazzy

On Thursday 27th of February, Blue Sky Harmony had a fantastic evening performing at The Lounge, upstairs at The Royal Hotel in Nundah - one of our regular haunts!  This cool live music venue features leather booths, Chesterfield couches, wood-panelled walls, and a pool table nook surrounded by beautiful framed black and white photos.

We were invited to take to the stage by Art Deco Dance Orchestra, whom we had previously met while they were performing at the regular 'Jazz Thursdays' event at The Lounge.  On this occasion they performed two sets with guest vocalist Peter Vance, and during their break we sang some of our favourite jazzy a cappella tunes - including the debut of our new contest uptune! 

The audience was wonderfully engaged.  It is rare to make a strong connection with audience members in any venue serving drinks, so we were thrilled to have such an appreciative crowd to interact with. Our choir always loves getting out and about in the Nundah community, and The Lounge was no exception. 

We received wonderful feedback from band leader Joe Howman, who said "We were blown away with your harmonies and heartfelt performance. The arrangements were interesting, novel and beautifully executed. We had excellent feedback from the audience and the venue's management. The Blue Sky Harmony performance contributed to making the night a big hit. In fact my sax player said to me, ‘How can we follow that?’."

Our sincere thanks go to Art Deco Dance Orchestra and everyone in the audience who made this such a memorable performance!

Blue Sky Harmony Music Team Attends Director Training Weekend

Last weekend was the Sweet Adelines Australia Directors' School in Sydney, which was attended by more than 100 musical directors, assistant directors and visual team leaders from all over Australia - and even some from New Zealand! The special guest faculty was Cy Wood, who has worked a an actor, producer, special events coordinator, and creative director, as well as coaching barbershop. Cy has significant experience in the area of showmanship, helping tie together the music, lyrics, singing and expression to create honest and moving performances. 

In addition to Cy's coaching, members of the Sweet Adelines Australia Regional Education Faculty presented classes such as: How to Teach, Inspire and Lead; The Truth About Resonance; and Conducting Skills. There were targeted networking sessions in which registrants were grouped according to their roles in their choruses - very valuable for sharing stories, techniques and strategies. 

Blue Sky Harmony's Musical Director, Julie, and Assistant Director, Jess, had a wonderful time learning new skills and networking with musical leaders from other choirs. Jess was invited to lead physical warm-ups one morning, and she had the whole room getting Uptown Funky! What a great way to share some Blue Sky Harmony joy with other Sweet Adelines. 

At our first rehearsal following Directors' School, we heard about some of Cy's teachings and we look forward to incorporating them into our songs. Thank you to Sweet Adelines Australia for putting on this amazing educational event every year, so our directors can continue to grow and learn, and bring back new ideas to our chorus. 

  
    Jess getting some valuable conducting feedback                   A small chorus of attendees being directed by Jess

  
    Physical warm-ups - Blue Sky Harmony style           Our directors traveled to Sydney with musical leaders from
                                                                                     Redland Rhapsody Chorus, which is based in Alexandra Hills 


Featured image: Julie, Cy and Jess at Directors' School

Thursday Nights Well Spent!

We've had a lovely break from rehearsals since the 12th of December, but we couldn't resist the opportunity for a couple of get-togethers during our 'time off'. First, we headed to the Hamilton Hotel for their regular Thursday night karaoke night - this time with a Christmas theme! We thoroughly enjoyed watching some talented and entertaining singers hit the stage, and we even chatted to a few people about our awesome little a cappella group.  

We performed songs by a range of artists, from Sam Smith to Belinda Carlisle, The Pointer Sisters, Duffy, and ABBA. The audience of fellow singers was extremely supportive, and loved the choreo that baritones Suzi and Kate threw into their rendition of 'Waterloo'. We hope to return for another round of karaoke in future!
 

  
Karaoke time! Blue Sky Harmony members at the Hamilton Hotel's Christmas karaoke night

Another activity that we don't have a chance to do often is head out for late-night shopping.  We didn't quite do that, but we had a lovely dinner at Chermside to start off the year. Next week, we're back at rehearsals!
 

A sneaky drink and a chat after a lovely dinner to start the new year

There is so much to look forward to this year for Blue Sky Harmony. We can't wait to have our first retreat, our first trip to the Sweet Adelines Australia convention and competition, and also charter as a chorus within Sweet Adelines International - a worldwide organisation of barbershop singers. 

It's wonderful to be part of a choir like ours, in which a shared love of singing can lead to long-lasting friendships. We hope to make many more friends in 2020 - come visit us at a rehearsal any time! 

Blue Sky Harmony's first carolling season

Our chorus has thoroughly enjoyed the last few weeks - our first season of Christmas carolling!  Our Festive Season Singing Workshop was a wonderful start to the holiday season, and we were proud to introduce 15 women to our style of a cappella singing during three rehearsals in November.  

Performance-wise, were excited to sing for an enthusiastic audience - full of excited children - at the Hawthorne Garage Christmas Carols on 1st December.  Hawthorne Garage is a gorgeous grocer/deli/produce market, and they have run their carols event for the last couple of years to raise money for local community members in need. Although the festivities had to be moved under cover this year due to rain, it didn't dampen the spirits of the event organisers and guests. 

Not long after the Hawthorne Garage carols, we hosted our inaugural Blue Sky Harmony Christmas Concert at Toombul Shire Hall, on 5th December. This was attended by an audience of more than 40 friends and family members, who heard a mix of traditional and contemporary carols sung by our choir, a quartet and a trio of singers. For the finale of the show, our Festive Season Singing Workshop participants joined us on stage to sing the three songs that they'd learnt with us. We also had a surprise for our audience - a carol medley featuring... kazoos!  It was a light-hearted way to end the performances, and a perfect segue into supper. 
 

  Sparkling Blends performs 'Santa Baby'                                    Time for an audience sing-along!

Our final performance of the season was by the beach at Scarborough Christmas Carols on 8th December. As well as fabulous music, this event had twilight markets, food trucks, rides, and loads of Christmas activities. Scarborough Christmas Carols provided us with a unique performance situation - individual microphones. Although we usually sing with microphones that pick up the choir's combined sound, we took advantage of the opportunity to use individual mics and unleashed our inner divas! The audience was huge - plenty of families with picnic blankets and camping chairs - and it was a wonderful event to be part of. 
 

   Hanging out in the deli air con at Hawthorne Garage       In amongst the crowd after our Scarborough performance        

Something else that we were happy to be part of this festive season was the 'It's In The Bag' campaign run by Share The Dignity. This charity's main focus is to help women and girls experiencing homelessness, by helping them access sanitary products and other personal care essentials. Each Christmas, they call for donations of handbags/backpacks filled with santiary items, toiletries, and other items; these are then distributed to women and girls in need. With generous support from family members, friends, workshop participants and colleagues, we were able to put together 17 bags for the It's In The Bag campaign. We hope to support this extremely worthy charity again in future years.
 

    
  We met Santa Claus backstage!        Some of the donations we put together for 'It's In The Bag'     Dropping off our bags at Bunnings

We're now on a break from rehearsals until 16th January, but we're going to have a couple of social catch-ups in the meantime!  We're very proud of what we've achieved as a chorus over the last few months, and we thank everyone who has shown an interest and supported us during this time. We hope you have a wonderful Christmas, and wish you all the best for the coming year.  


Featured image:  Blue Sky Harmony on stage at our inaugural Christmas Concert.

Sharing the joy of singing

Throughout November, Blue Sky Harmony was excited to welcome 15 women to a series of introductory workshops on a cappella singing. Participants came to the workshops with a range of levels of singing experience, from long-time choristers to complete newbies, and the lessons had something for everyone. Each week, we focused on a different skill area and worked on learning three festive songs.

The workshop's finale was our Christmas concert on 5th December, which had an audience of more than 40 supportive family members and friends. Many of our workshop participants took the opportunity to showcase the results of their efforts, joining us on stage for three songs. The final song - a Christmas carol medley - had a surprise twist... kazoos!  It was a fun finish to a wonderful few weeks of learning. 

Members of Blue Sky Harmony thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the workshop participants, and we hope that some have been inspired to do more singing in future. There is a choir out there for everyone! We believe that a creative outlet is so important to have - it allows for self expression, facilitates learning, and builds confidence. Our chorus looks forward to running further a cappella workshops in 2020, so we can encourage more women to get back into singing. 
 

Some of the Festive Season Singing Workshop participants, with Blue Sky Harmony members

Featured image:  The finale of our Christmas concert - a carol medley with kazoos!

Blue Sky Harmony in Canberra

Five members of Blue Sky Harmony travelled to Canberra to attend a special workshop by educator Steve Scott, from 22-24 November. Steve works for the Barbershop Harmony Society - the US men's barbershop organisation - as a Music Education Specialist. In this role, he oversees the development and implementation of new interactive and online learning for Harmony University, and assists in the operation of music-based curriculum at Barbershop Harmony Society education events.

Steve's specialisation is in vocal pedagogy, which is the study of the art and science of voice instruction. Vocal pedagogy is used to teach singing, including how to achieve proper singing technique.  The classes that Steve presented over the weekend described how the voice works, what doesn't improve singing technique (i.e. mythbusting), how the correct body alignment can positively affect sound, and how to better use breath and vowels when singing.  

Barbershoppers from all over Australia took part in the workshop, so this was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with friends from other choruses.  The event was hosted by Brindabella chorus, who are heading to the Sweet Adelines International convention next year to compete in the Harmony Classic - a competition of the ten best small-to-midsized barbershop choruses in the world. Workshop participants were treated to a sneak peak of Brindabella's competition package, so we feel pretty special!  

We are now looking forward to putting many of Steve's teachings into practice as we work towards performing at the Sweet Adelines Australia Convention and Competition in 2020 in Hobart. 
 

Vocal pedagogy expert Steve Scott coaches Brindabella Chorus. 

Featured image:  Blue Sky Harmony members Ainslie, Michelle, Suzi, Natalie and Courtney on their way home after an educational, fun-filled weekend in Canberra.

The River City Clippers' Annual Concert

Blue Sky Harmony was honoured to be a guest act at the annual concert of Brisbane-based men's barbershop chorus, The RIver City Clippers (pictured above) on 27th October. This year, the Clippers took a creative idea and turned it into a wonderful themed show - Close Encounters of the Musical Kind.

The concept of the show was based around an alien called Notone, who was travelling through outer space when she discovered something amazing... the golden record that was launched into the solar system on NASA's Voyager spacecraft in 1977! History buffs may know that this record was inscribed with directions to earth and instructions on how to create a record player. By following these instructions, other intelligent life-forms would be able to play the record, which carried greetings from the people of planet Earth, and samples of music including classical, blues and rock 'n' roll. 

In the Clippers' show, the intrepid alien had found the record, decoded it, and then travelled to earth to find out more about the music she had heard. Luckily for Notone, she landed right next to the Clippers' rehearsal venue - a perfect place to find the information she was seeking! The story of how Notone made her way to Earth was covered in a clever show-opening video, which you can still watch here.
 

    
Blue Sky Harmony backstage at the Clippers' concert           After the show. L-R: Nick, Julie, Steve and Jess       

Over the course of the afternoon, the Clippers took the audience on a journey through many types of music, and Blue Sky Harmony was happy perform a set of four songs during the show.  This performance was our choir's official public debut, and we thoroughly enjoyed singing to a room full of barbershop and a cappella music fans.  The show was a great success, and we look forward to collaborating with the Clippers again in future. 

You can catch us performing next at our Christmas Concert on Thursday 5th December - find out more here.

Feel the festive spirit with Blue Sky Harmony

Blue Sky Harmony is proud to present our inaugural Christmas Concert on Thursday 5th December from 8pm at Toombul Shire Hall, Nundah, on Brisbane's northside.

Join us for an evening of music to kick-start the festive season! You will enjoy traditional and contemporary carols performed by our choir, quartets, and participants in our November singing workshop. Audience members will even have a chance to join in the singing!

Tickets are $10 each, or free for children under 15, which includes entertainment and light refreshments. Grab your tickets today!

This event is supported by the Lord Mayor's Community Fund and the Councillor for Northgate Ward.

Blue Sky Harmony is out and about!

Over the past month, we’ve had a packed schedule of amazing concerts and workshops!  We attended the Vocalescence and Sound Connection combined show in August, which included an exciting Wizard of Oz-themed package.  This was followed soon after by a concert hosted by the Blenders Chorus, featuring award-winning men’s barbershop quartets The Newfangled Four and Blindside.

From late August to early September, talented Blue Sky Harmony member Liliana was performing in the title role of Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble’s production of ‘Henry IV Part I’. Many of us rugged up to enjoy this play at the Amphitheatre, Roma Street Parkland, Brisbane.

Most recently, we were thrilled to attend a masterclass with ‘the father of contemporary a cappella’, Deke Sharon.  Deke is a singer, arranger, composer, director, producer and teacher, and he is widely known for his role as the musical director and arranger for the ‘Pitch Perfect’ films. Our choir’s members enjoyed learning some vocal percussion skills and hearing Deke’s thoughts on performing.

We love to attend shows and workshops as a chorus.  Not only do these outings give us ideas for our own performances, but they’re also an opportunity to build closer connections with other arts groups – and have a lot of fun in the process! 
 

  Liliana as Henry IV                      Some of Blue Sky Harmony's members with The Newfangled Four quartet             

 Photo: Craig McDiarmid

Featured image:  Blue Sky Harmony with Deke Sharon

Festive season singing workshop

Do you love to sing? Are you interested in learning more about harmony singing and vocal production? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a star of the stage? If the answer to any of these questions is 'YES!', then we invite you to join us for a fabulous festive season singing workshop!

Workshop participants will join the members of Blue Sky Harmony for three rehearsals, from 7:00-9:00pm on the 14th, 21st and 28th of November. During this time, they will learn a fun holiday song in four-part a cappella harmony with our choir, and work on improving their vocal production and performance skills.

The excitement won't end there though! On Thursday 5th December, participants will have the opportunity to join Blue Sky Harmony on stage to perform for family and friends at our inaugural Christmas concert, starting at 8pm. All rehearsals and the Christmas concert will be at Toombul Shire Hall, in Nundah Village, Brisbane.

Register now for the Blue Sky Harmony festive season singing workshop, or contact us anytime for more information. We hope to see you there!

This workshop is supported by the Lord Mayor's Community Fund and the Councillor for Northgate Ward. 

Blue Sky Harmony Embraces Learning Opportunities

August has been an action-packed month so far for Blue Sky Harmony, and we're less than two weeks in!  Last Thursday night we were thrilled to spend a night being coached by Glenda Lloyd in our new rehearsal venue - Toombul Shire Hall.  Glenda is Master Director of Brindabella Chorus, a Sweet Adelines Australia Regional Education Faculty member, and also an arranger, songwriter, and medallist quartet singer (bass in Debacle Quartet).  Although we are a small choir, we sounded five times the size by the end of rehearsal, and were singing with joy and freedom.  We celebrated with a drink after rehearsal, and enjoyed a chat with one of our favourite coaches.

We followed on from this special night with a whole weekend of learning at Sweet Adelines Australia's 'August A Cappella' event. This was just one of a series of workshops that will be held all over Australia in August, and around 60 people attended in Brisbane (pictured above),.

Glenda Lloyd and Jo Oosterhoff were our coaches for the weekend - Jo sings tenor in the Australian champion quartet, Enchant, and is also a Master Director of A Cappella West Chorus, which she co-directs with Lindsey Dyer. With this wealth of experience, the weekend was sure to be a success, and Blue Sky Harmony's members had a wonderful time honing our vocal production and performance skills.  

Another highlight of August A Cappella was catching up with other singers from all over the east coast - from Bundaburg to Melbourne. It is always a delight to spend time with other women who share our passion for a cappella harmony singing. We can't wait to see what the rest of August brings!

            Blue Sky Harmony at August A Cappella                    Coaching with Glenda Lloyd (Glenda pictured centre)            

Welcome To Our New Website!

Thanks for stopping by to learn more about Blue Sky Harmony. Although we are one of Brisbane's newest performance ensembles, our members have been singing together for many years. In our midst we have seasoned a cappella singers, educators, facilitators, and musicians. 

Our choir has a varied repertoire of contemporary four-part a cappella harmony music, and our performances incorporate storytelling and movement. We are now accepting bookings to perform at events and functions - if you are planning an event during the festive season, please contact us ASAP as our availability is limited. 

Blue Sky Harmony is based in Nundah, on the northside of Brisbane, and we welcome membership enquiries from women who love to sing, embrace new challenges, and strive for excellence. For all the details of how to sing with us, visit our 'Become a Member' page. 

We invite you to follow us on our journey via Facebook, Instagram, or by signing up to our mailing list (via the 'join our mailing list' box on the top right of this page).