History of the Casey Choir
Casey Choir, formerly the Narre Warren Music Society, came into being in April 1998 with the intention of performing a varied and exciting program of music from many different genres. The Choir was fortunate to obtain the services of Pamela Thompson as Music Director. Pamela had an extensive background in performing and teaching music both in Australia and America.The ensuing years saw the Casey Choir become synonymous with popular community events such as Carols by Candlelight, and performances at City of Casey events. Conscious of civic duty, Casey Choir has proudly participated in many Citizenship ceremonies, Australia Day events, and assisting service clubs (Inner Wheel) in their special regional fundraising events. The choir also has participated in fundraising for “Walk for Life” and “Pink Ribbon” days.
Pamela Thompson retired as Musical Director in 2008 and the Casey Choir recognizes the valuable contribution that she has made to the choir.
A special time for the choir is the season of Christmas when we joyfully share our love of traditional and contemporary Christmas music with the numerous residents of retirement centers, nursing homes and shoppers in the region
During 2007, The Casey Choir embarked on a plan to raise the necessary funds to allow us to travel to perform in the Prague International Advent Choir Festival in December 2009. This task proved to be a bigger than we envisaged and the plans for this trip have been put aside at this time. It is the aim of the choir to travel overseas eventually and to travel locally and interstate in the not too distant future.
Tom Buchanan was welcomed early in 2008 as the new Musical Director. Tom's wide background in musical excellence, studying, teaching and working with the Australian Welsh Male Choir, brought fresh enthusiasm and inspiration to the members of Casey Choir. Tom was ably assisted by our talented and dedicated accompanist, Phillip Dahlenburg. During Tom’s tenure he encouraged us to spread our wings and with this in mind, we performed a Gala Concert to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the choir, at Christ Church in South Yarra during September 2008. Tom also instigated a concert in conjunction with three other choirs to celebrate Christmas. This has become an annual event. Choir members were disappointed when Tom tendered his resignation in December 2009, to move onto new challenges.
In January 2010, Simon Loveless was appointed Music Director. Simon is well known throughout music circles, particularly in the south-east of Melbourne. He has current associations with several different choirs (see Simon’s profile on our ‘People’ page). He continued where Tom left off with instilling more confidence, exploring new music and teaching skills to enhance our musicality.
July 2011 saw many choir members travel to Hobart for the annual Festival of Voices. We all rugged up against the cold, performed in several venues and were able to watch many other choirs perform. We will definitely be going again in 2012.
August sees us performing at our annual concert at St. Margarets. This is a beautiful venue and our audience numbers seem to grow each year. Once again, a very successful concert and the choir received many accolades.
In December 2011, Phillip Dahlenberg, our very reliable and very accomplished accompanist tendered his resignation. Phillip has been with the choir for over ten years and has always been available to play when and wherever the choir performs. Phillip will be very hard to replace and we wish him and Amore the very best for the future.
2011 saw the choir grow substantially and this can be attributed largely to the skills of our Music Director, Simon. With everything we have in place for 2012 – we’ll be flying high at the end of the year!!
The beginning of the 2012 year we welcomed our new accompanist, Kerith Cummins. Kerith is extremely skilled and settled into her new role as if she had been there all along. We hope we have her services for many years to come.