DAWN CHORUS

The first of our series of Dawn Chorus events took place last Saturday at 5.30am on Balmoral Beach. Here is an account of Dawn Chorus from one of the chorister’s perspective.

"As long as we live, there is never enough singing"-Martin Luther

The schools I went to didn't have choirs. And although there was always (pop) music on in my house, I didn't come from a musical family. No one really noticed that, from aged 5, I spent hours and hours in my room experimenting with singing Bananarama and Bangles songs in different keys. No one thought much of the fact that I taught myself to read music (by looking at a 'My First Recorder Book') only shortly after I learnt to read writing.

It wasn't until 3 years into my first degree at the ANU, at aged 22, that I walked into a rehearsal of a choir, namely the ANU Choral Society (SCUNA). I remember that I was handed a score and asked whether I was a Soprano or an Alto. I didn't know what a Soprano or an Alto was. I took a punt and stood with the latter (alas, as it turns out, I am the former). After a few words of welcome the conductor told us to open our scores and counted us in: "...3-4" I remember panicking a little in the milliseconds before his baton came down, wondering how on earth I was supposed to magically make the 'G' that I could read on my score come out of my mouth.

And then I heard it. The first (sung) chord of the Kyrie in Rossini's "Petite Messe Solenelle". I had never in my life heard such an incredible sound as these 100+ people singing together in harmony. It is simply not possible to explain to someone who has sung in (or listened to) choirs from an early age, the magic of that moment. In fact, now that singing is such an important part of my life, I can no longer truly remember exactly how I felt. But certainly my life was forever altered in that instant.

This morning I sung as part of the Sydney Philharmonia Choir in the first event of this year's Sydney Festival: The Dawn Chorus. The rehearsal the morning before had not gone well. The waves and the wind and the general lack of acoustic (and thus inability to hear one another) that comes with singing outside meant that this very skilled choir was horribly out of tune.

Furthermore, and unsurprisingly given the hour, the beach was virtually deserted and, at least when we first arrived, almost pitch black. It was cold. We were warned to be quiet so as not to break noise restrictions and disturb residents. The combination of all of this created an atmosphere in which most of us could not possibly imagine more than a few dozen people turning up the next morning to hear what might possibly be a fairly wretched performance. Indeed, even the Sydney Festival representative at our rehearsal the day before had joked that although the Festival were "very excited about this project", they wondered how many people would turn up at 5:30 in the morning to hear us.

Approximately 5,000 came. Virtually the entire length of the beach was filled with people. On the promenade, the crowd was ten or twelve deep. Some people climbed trees. Others stood in the water and some balanced precariously on the rock shelf behind us.

We were so surprised, excited and grateful. It was warmer and calmer than the morning before and we sang much better. From the outset the audience was very appreciative, listening intently, breathing with us and clapping (and sometimes cheering) enthusiastically after each piece. They joined in the reprise of the Nigerian folk song "O-re-mi" as we walked through their midst at the end of the concert, as our original exit path was now blocked with people. As it turned out, there were so many people in attendance that a great number hadn't been able to hear us from their distant position. So when we had made our way to the opposite end of the beach we sung two of the pieces again, for their benefit.

After the concert was over I was inundated (as, no doubt, were all the choristers and Brett our Musical Director) with people congratulating and above all thanking me for the concert. This continued throughout the morning as I went to get breakfast from a nearby cafe and later as I walked around Balmoral. Perhaps most notable were the two young, male surfers (not our typical audience) who'd happened upon the event whilst on "dawn patrol." They approached me in the line at the cafe to tell me how "outstanding," "amazing" and "fantastic" the singing was. They had paddled around and stood waist deep in water to hear us, and are now planning to come to our performance at Bondi Beach in a few weeks' time.

I have heard Brett talk about the place of live (choral) music in today's society. In an age of Ipods, of music on demand, surely attending (and staging) live concerts is redundant and unnecessary? But Brett argues that the point of live performance is for the audience to be active participants in, rather than passive recipients of, the music. He feels that a choral concert should be a collaboration between the audience and the singers. And a finer example than this morning's performance of that theory put into practice would be difficult to find. The audience were integral to the performance and we were as grateful for them as they were for us.

So today I am reflecting, as I often do, on what a privilege it is to sing in a choir (particularly this choir). It is an entity in which the whole truly is greater than the sum of its parts. For me: "I don't sing because I'm happy; I'm happy because I sing." (William James)

By Caroline Woollias

To view some pictures of the event, check out the Sydney Festival Flickr stream here.