June 15th, 2020The choir that really keeps up with the Joneses
THE music that for centuries has coursed through the blood of the Welsh found voice during COVID-19 through a choir that includes Kyneton’s 83-year-old Keith McCoy.
The Melbourne Welsh Male Choir went viral to lift people’s spirits, getting over 40,000 online hits.
Wearing almost everything from white tie and tails to hoodies, Hawaiian shirts, bright bow ties and the choir shirts, the 51 members, aged 45 to 89, boomed out the 60s Hollies hit, He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.
And just to show these choristers aren’t dull, they held an online contest to name which one of their members had been accidentally lost in filming this performance.
Keith, who’s lived in Kyneton for 18 months after 16 years in Drummond, began with the choir four years ago after belonging to another of Melbourne’s three Welsh choirs.
His choir’s YouTube and Facebook performance was helped by legend Mike Brady and top musician Roy Best.
“We didn’t have a cut-off,” says Keith. “We were just told ‘This is going to happen’.”
Members of the choir include a retired doctor, a paramedic, business types and a solar farm consultant. Naturally, there are a couple called Jones and at least one Thomas, and a dozen who were Welsh-born.
“The average age is a bit too high,” says Keith. “Thirteen of us are over 80.”
What’s more, “You have to have in your head your part of 100 songs. The vast majority of Welsh choirs sing without the book”.
Being a chorister requires dedication, which before the pandemic meant Keith undertook a weekly four-hour round trip to Ringwood for a two and a half-hour rehearsal, arriving home about 11.30pm.
If things had gone as planned, Keith’s choir would have sung in London this year, but events intervened.
For the Welsh, singing has a history dating back six centuries. Their “land of song” has traditional musical styles which became associated with drunkenness and immorality until the Methodist Church moved in to revive hymns in the late 18th century.
This nation that produced everyone from Tom Jones to Bryn Terfel, Shirley Bassey, Charlotte Church and Aled Jones, has singing in its DNA.
These days, Keith’s choir is modernising its repertoire, including Freddy Mercury’s Lullaby in its program.
Formed in 1984, the choir sings in Welsh as well as English, South African, Italian, Latin, Maori, Aboriginal and German, performing in venues ranging from the Sydney Opera House to Hamer Hall, the National Gallery at the Arts Centre and Government House, as well as across the state.
While the quality of the singing is important, the choir also pays close attention to its benefits to the health of the singers.
The choir has toured overseas seven times, including performing at the Royal Albert Hall, London.
Its Singer of the Year contest for young performers will be held in October, under musical director, David Ashton-Smith, a classically-trained singer who rose to become principal baritone during nine years with the English National Opera.
www.facebook.com/MelbourneWelshChoir or
YouTube youtube/IjGKQ0otAKU
Words: Kevin Childs | Image: David White
