Blog post #43 ChoirKate - Part 3

First-any MacRobbies following this….if you can lay your hand on a snap of us in action I’d be grateful to receive it. Have seen one of us in Ballarat round here quite recently, but can I find it today? No!
(I have tour snaps…..)

Everyone else….
Okay, so this is where it starts to get really interesting I think.

First, you need to remember that for most of the 80s & 90s I was prancing around in frocks, usually with the VSO at the State Theatre and of course these years also encompassed my Stacey decade too.
So I was literally having the time of my life!

And then came the treasure trove of MacRob!
I barely know where to begin this chapter, except to say that I stumbled into that voice teaching job and then into Choral Director of the place amidst various restructuring etc in the early 90s.

How I loved it. All of it! The girls were fantastic. Teaching them was such a dream and you can imagine how wonderful it was to have them in both the Concert Choir and the newly formed MacRobertson Chamber Voices.
I worked them so hard; early mornings, lunchtimes and after school with pizza dinners.
And it wasn’t long before they were taking out prizes all over the place.
Remember that these were the days well before tech made part learning beyond rehearsals possible; so the girls churned out song after song simply by being consistently present and intensely focused.
We lived and breathed together those girls and I.

I still didn’t really twig that being a Choral Conductor was actually my calling……I know! 🙄
I had to have a wake up call about that.

It was *Paul Oakley who delivered the news.
We had been involved in the Melbourne Festival of
Choirs which had a competition running alongside the conference events and Paul was the high profile international guest serving as both adjudicator and key note presenter.
So it was that we were there. Pipped to the post by the astonishing Eltham Primary kids led by the extraordinary Ann Williams as it happens.
However, to my intense embarrassment Paul talked of the conducting he had seen across the days of the festival. He said that there was one conductor who seemed to have an uncommon level of musical skill, understanding and rapport.
My dear friend and Director of Music Ophelia was sitting next to me digging me in the ribs, while I shook my head and denied that he could be talking about me.

After the session, Paul bailed me up as I was trying to leave. Who was I? What was my background? Me, stuttering with, “well I’m just a two bit singer and teach these kids singing and I guess I’ve always done choirs….” trailing off apologetically.

“Well,” said he, “THIS is what you need to be doing. THIS! You need to get on and take it seriously!”

I got in my car and burst into tears for I knew he was right! Howled all the way up Punt Rd and Hoddle St I did.
There was other stuff in there.
You see I had never felt that I fitted in anywhere much.
Diving into the VSO was the first experience of feeling ok about myself and having that sense of belonging.

I never felt that about the choral scene. Still don’t really. Not casting any aspersions here. It’s just that I have always done my own thing and that has rarely been conventional. Increasingly the opposite of that in fact!
And I knew that to put the hat on firmly, I would have to cast aside the frocks and frippery and revert to the proverbial square peg feeling.
I didn’t really jump at Paul’s challenge it has to be said, mainly because Stace and I had hit a sticky patch in the early 90s but had grown beyond it and moved into calmer waters. I was enjoying this new experience with him. I loved him heart and soul. I was his, utterly.

As is the way of this quirky thing called life two devastating things happened in October 1996.
The VSO was merged into the AO and things would never be the same for the singers of Melbourne.

That happened on the Monday and then on the Friday, Stace was taken from me and from us all.
Stopping here for a moment.
Breathe.

For this is not about that story, but of course it was the catalyst for change, the property that invariably flows in the wake of chaos and catatonic situations such as these.
No Stace and no more frocks.

At this time my darling friend Mary came to MacRob to take the fabulous Chamber Music program and it wasn’t long before we were in cahoots with grand plans for the talented young women in our care.
With our eye on the target of a UK tour in 1999, we set about putting the steps in place towards that goal.
We both had romantic recollections of our childhood experience of Christmas back in our Mother Country and our students happily went along for the ride as we explored old favourites. Mary arranged the music for her Chamber Strings and together with the Chamber Voices they soared with the angels.
Flamboyant turn of phrase maybe, but you really had to be there!
Our mulled wine fund raisers In The Bleak Mid Winter became legendary.
I say “our” - truth is I was in the darkest and gloomiest of places at this time and it was Mary who drove most of this with her vision and passion.

Without Mary and without those glorious young voices I think I may have played the Miss Haversham card. As it was, I had to get up of a morning and get cracking. Healing and recovery were a fair way off at this point, but music making gave me slices of time away from my abject misery.

The lovely mulled wine nights were also designed to build the repertoire so the singers would be ready for the bigger fundraising fish of a CD all done and dusted and on the shelves for Christmas 1998.
It will be no surprise to you to learn that the wonderfully celebratory album titled, “In Dulci Jubilo” included Britten’s Ceremony of Carols!
Of course it did!

Mary had so much input into it including approaching her friend the MSO’s Principle Harp, Julie Raines to accompany the Britten.
As well as rehearsing her Chamber Strings to accompany most of the carols Mary was at the sound desk, sourced the artwork, put together the liner notes and persuaded producers of the ABC and 3MBS to give the recording airplay.
It was a massive success raising $16,000 towards the UK tour!

Just one more little side step here is the heart stopping moment when my dad called me from the UK saying, “it’s about the CD Kate…..” pregnant pause, (and baited breath Downunder, for he was very short on any kind of praise with ready backhanders waiting in the wings)
“It’s extraordinary and the Britten gives Kings College Cambridge a run for its money!”
I nearly fell out of my hammock!

Next instalment tells the story of what happened in January 1999 and beyond…….
The roller coaster was just getting started!
Here’s Britten’s Balulalow from Ceremony of Carols.
The MacRobertson Chamber Voices
Soloist - Jess Oddy
With Julie Raines - Harp
Recorded at Eaton Studios by Robin Grey
Produced by Mary Johnston.

https://youtu.be/DB7lDxFwGPM

*In fiddling around with this story I went looking for Paul to get the spelling of his name right. Sadly I see he that passed away a relatively young man in 2012.
I hope this finds its way to buddies in the US who might convey to Paul’s friends and family how very important and pivotal our brief encounter turned out to be. Bless you and thank you my friend. RIP

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