Larry Hills during rehearsals for The Miners' Requiem. Photo by Geoff Glare Retired music teacher Larry Hills still had the music in him, and so the Bass Coast Chorale was born. This month the chorale celebrates its first 10 years with an anniversary concert.
By Larry Hills
I UNDERSTAND what Louis Armstrong meant when he said, “Musicians don’t retire; they stop when there’s no more music in them.” I had retired after 31 years of teaching music when I arrived in Wonthaggi in 2005 but I still had plenty of music in me. It was all still there: a singer, a performer, a composer and arranger, a musical director, a choral music specialist and a conductor.
Not surprisingly, I jumped at the chance to get a choir going in Wonthaggi. We decided to call it the Bass Coast Chorale. To quote Satchmo once again, “What a Wonderful World!”
Larry Hills conducts the Bass Coast Chorale during rehearsals for The Miners' Requiem. Photo: Geoff Glare
The Bass Coast Chorale’s 10th anniversary concert is in the St Joseph’s Hall, Dowling Street, Wonthaggi, at 2pm on Sunday, November 20. Tickets are $15 (free for children) which includes afternoon tea. Buy tuckets from the Rose Lodge Opportunity Shop in McBride Avenue, Wonthaggi, from Bass Coast Chorale members or at the door.
The Bass Coast Chorale got off to a great start in 2006. In 2016, our tenth anniversary year, we are even stronger. We’ve sung all kinds of choral music from secular to sacred, from serious to silly. The wonderful people in the chorale love singing together. Rehearsals are a pleasure and performances always have an air of excitement about them. I’ve written original music specifically for the chorale and also have written many arrangements for them to sing.
We have been exceptionally busy in our anniversary year. To kick off the celebrations we hosted a singing workshop with the wonderful Dr Jonathon Welch and his Melbourne group “THE CHO!R”. We followed up in June with our own special concert in the Wonthaggi Town Hall featuring music from The Armed Man by Karl Jenkins. In September we took part in “Sing South Gippsland”, a fabulous choral workshop in Foster with the great Richard Gill, conductor and musical director of many orchestras.
The finale for our anniversary year is a concert which is really a retrospective tribute to our early years as a choir. Many of the songs we will be singing are my arrangements, written for the Chorale. Our concert is on Sunday, November 20 at 2pm in the St Joseph’s Hall, the venue in which we had our first public performance 10 years ago. Fittingly, the first number on the program is my arrangement of What a Wonderful World.
I UNDERSTAND what Louis Armstrong meant when he said, “Musicians don’t retire; they stop when there’s no more music in them.” I had retired after 31 years of teaching music when I arrived in Wonthaggi in 2005 but I still had plenty of music in me. It was all still there: a singer, a performer, a composer and arranger, a musical director, a choral music specialist and a conductor.
Not surprisingly, I jumped at the chance to get a choir going in Wonthaggi. We decided to call it the Bass Coast Chorale. To quote Satchmo once again, “What a Wonderful World!”
Larry Hills conducts the Bass Coast Chorale during rehearsals for The Miners' Requiem. Photo: Geoff Glare
The Bass Coast Chorale’s 10th anniversary concert is in the St Joseph’s Hall, Dowling Street, Wonthaggi, at 2pm on Sunday, November 20. Tickets are $15 (free for children) which includes afternoon tea. Buy tuckets from the Rose Lodge Opportunity Shop in McBride Avenue, Wonthaggi, from Bass Coast Chorale members or at the door.
The Bass Coast Chorale got off to a great start in 2006. In 2016, our tenth anniversary year, we are even stronger. We’ve sung all kinds of choral music from secular to sacred, from serious to silly. The wonderful people in the chorale love singing together. Rehearsals are a pleasure and performances always have an air of excitement about them. I’ve written original music specifically for the chorale and also have written many arrangements for them to sing.
We have been exceptionally busy in our anniversary year. To kick off the celebrations we hosted a singing workshop with the wonderful Dr Jonathon Welch and his Melbourne group “THE CHO!R”. We followed up in June with our own special concert in the Wonthaggi Town Hall featuring music from The Armed Man by Karl Jenkins. In September we took part in “Sing South Gippsland”, a fabulous choral workshop in Foster with the great Richard Gill, conductor and musical director of many orchestras.
The finale for our anniversary year is a concert which is really a retrospective tribute to our early years as a choir. Many of the songs we will be singing are my arrangements, written for the Chorale. Our concert is on Sunday, November 20 at 2pm in the St Joseph’s Hall, the venue in which we had our first public performance 10 years ago. Fittingly, the first number on the program is my arrangement of What a Wonderful World.