Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
If Michelle Leonard from the back of beyond can do it, you can do it too.
That’s what the founder and conductor of the lauded rural youth choir Moorambilla Voices hopes her young students carry with them as they discover the power of music.
“When people seek to diminish their experience because they grew up in a regional area, or seek to tell them they are lacking, they have this innate belief they’re actually ahead,” Ms Leonard told AAP.
“It becomes the framing of how they view the world.”
The program, which travels to about 80 rural and remote communities between Wellington and Wilcannia in western NSW, introduces children and teenagers to musical literacy, singing, dancing and movement.
It offers students the chance to be part of a 400-strong choir that often performs in traditional languages, accompanied by a chamber orchestra or traditional Japanese drumming.
The choir will celebrate 21 years with a show at the Sydney Opera House on October 3 called The Power of Possibilities.
It follows a one-off concert with English a cappella group VOCES8 in the Utzon Room in 2024, which was broadcast to a large audience through ABC Classic.
Ms Leonard, who grew up in Coonamble and trained at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, said opportunities to learn, travel and perform helped rural kids find their place in the wider world.
Several Australian and international studies have shown the wellbeing, cognitive and mental health benefits of singing in a choir.
Choral singing strengthened emotional regulation and sense of self in disadvantaged adults through improved connectedness, social functioning and routine, according to a 2012 University of Queensland study.
Ms Leonard has witnessed those kinds of transformations in her students many times, having taught 55,000 young people over two decades.
“For some students, it’s even about creating and maintaining eye contact,” she said.
“They also create friendships outside their communities because they’ve found like-minded peers.
“In a regional area, you can be a square peg in a round hole, but when you find your tribe, you thrive.”
Their performance on one of the world’s most famous stages will demonstrate the depth of talent among young people in the regions and their potential outside the typical realm of sport.
“The more I work with them, the more I’m inspired by their drive to bring their best selves,” Ms Leonard said.
“We seem to be able to attribute a lot of those characteristics to sport, but we’re yet to have a really robust conversation about how you can narrow that in a collaborative way through the arts.
“So we’re doing that.”
