April 14, 2014
Several members of the Blackbutt Singers are packing their bags for an exciting overseas tour – highlights of which include singing in St Ann’s Church in Dublin on Anzac Day and at St Paul’s Cathedral in London.
Blackbutt Singers members Maree Hammond, Janette Thomas, Trish Mearns and Judy Lawrence will be joined by Peter Curtain, from Kumbia, for the trip.
They will be travelling with the Esk Community Choir – a total of 38 singers in all – and will fly out next Wednesday.
Blackbutt Singers president Maree Hammond said the trip would be “absolutely amazing”.
In Dublin, they will be performing a special arrangement of “Lest We Forget” in four parts which they have been practising for more than 12 months.
Their Anzac Day performance will be followed by a public reception, where they will also perform.
The tour will then continue on to Galway, where they will sing at Mass at Galway Cathedral, and then Cork where they will be attending the 60th anniversary of the Cork International Chorale Festival.
Maree said the group would be spending five days in Cork performing at lots of concerts around the district.
They will then fly to Bristol and Bath, with performances at Stratford-on-Avon and the Gloucestershire Cathedral.
Then it will be on to London where they will sing at St Paul’s Cathedral.
They will be joined for this performance by Jan Pritchard, from Kingaroy, who had planned to do the whole tour with the group until the recent death of her husband Frank.
Maree said this was the fourth trip the members of the Blackbutt Singers had undertaken with the Esk Community Choir.
In 2006, they performed in Germany, Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic; in 2008, they revisited Germany and Prague; and in 2011 they travelled throughout Italy.
Maree agreed it was an amazing effort for a small town choir, but she said it was also amazing the group had been together for so long.
She said it was unusual for many choirs to last 15 years, but the Blackbutt Singers were still going strong after almost 23 years.
If you’d like to catch them before they jet overseas, the choir’s next performance will be at Karinya at Nanango from 10:00am on Holy Thursday (April 17).
