SWAN Hill locals raised the roof on the town hall on Wednesday night as a large group of hundreds lent their voices to the In Full Voice community choir event.
Last time this happened in Swan Hill was in 2018.
A part of the Fairfax Youth Festival, the community choir was an opportunity for everyone to get involved.
Led by Helpmann Award-winning composer and music director Nate Gilkes, the group spent an hour learning some basic singing techniques and the words to a mash up of the iconic songs Throw Your Arms Around Me by Hunters and Collectors, and I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For by U2.
Mr Gilkes said jokingly that he wasn’t even sure the two groups had ever met.
“The way the community came through and came into the building and just owned it was fantastic,” he said.
“Everyone was nervous at the beginning but by the end it was like we had all been together for years.
“There was something really releasing about all the voices together.
“All the different ages coming together was beautiful.
“There was people aged in their 80s and a few six-year-olds, then all the youth from the festival and the mums and dads.
“It was just a joyous moment of togetherness.”
The years of COVID have taken its toll on community and Mr Gilkes lamented how a couple of years ago we were all worried about breathing on each other and singing was banded.
He said that last night people were coming out in defiance of that and there was a profound effect on everyone of being able to come together as a community and rebuild.
“The songs we choose were about a community rebuilding a sense of itself,” Mr Gilkes said.
“It’s about climbing a mountain, it’s about still searching for something, and then the Hunters and Collectors song is about a big embrace.
“You had these two lovely themes coming together of still looking and still searching despite having done all these really hard things and then finding it in an embrace.
“I felt that last night was a very spiritual experience.”
The event was recorded and a video clip shot using multiple cameras.
This material will be edited and released as a YouTube clip.
The last time this was done, the result was viewed many thousands of times, and Mr Gilkes said he was confident that this year’s clip would eclipse that number.
