Hundreds of voices combined to belt out a range of songs during Sunday’s congregation of male choirs at WIN Entertainment Centre.
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This was the first time the Male Choirs Association of Australia has chosen to take their Australian Male Choir Festival to a regional city.
The event was hosted by the Arcadians Lamplighters.
The three-day event culminated in ‘Let All Men Sing’ at the Entertainment Centre, whereby all participating sung en masse a program of 14 songs of varying genres.
The NSW Police Concert Band accompanied the choirs on some songs, while also delivering their own performance.
Organisers said 354 male singers from 14 choirs took part in Sunday’s performance, including a guest choir from New Zealand.
The Corrimal-based Arcadians Lamplighters Male Choir are members of the Male Choirs Association of Australia and since 2008 have joined other male choirs from throughout Australia in massed choral events every few years, including events in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne.
MCAA treasurer and administration manager of the Lamplighters Dave Bryars said this year the MCAA decided to go to a regional centre and asked the Lamplighters to host the 2017 festival.
The choirs which took part on Sunday included the Australian Rugby Choice, The Con Men and the Melbourne Welsh Male Choir.
Combined rehearsals took place in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney in preparation for the event.
Other guests at the concert were The String Family (the Moir family, who left Mount Kembla for life busking on the road), conductor of the Sydney Male Choir Keiren Brandt-Sawdy, conductor of the Australian Welsh Male Choir Tom Buchanan and pianist Emily Leong.
“It’s non-competitive; everybody learns the same songs and everyone sings together, so there’s no competition among the choirs,” Mr Bryars said.
Wollongong Rotary collected donations for prostate cancer research during the concert.
Mr Bryars said he hoped the festival would return to Wollongong in the future.
The Lamplighters choir was founded in 1999 by Mr Bryars’ wife Doreen.
“They sing some really good songs and they do very well, but they have a lot of fun as well,” Mr Bryars said.
“The health benefits are enormous.
“They’ve got quite a lot of single men in the choir who have lost their wives and things like that.
“It gives them an outlet and somewhere to go on a Monday morning (for rehearsals), and we do regular concerts around the place.
“They all just absolutely love it, they really do.”
