Tassie’s award-winning Southern Gospel Choir notable alumni take to the stage to cap off 25 years
After 25 years the Southern Gospel Choir is calling time. Find out how this community has contributed to countless talented Tasmanian careers.
Tasmania
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Southern Gospel Choir founder Professor Andrew Legg is threatening a performance that could “lift the roof” of the Theatre Royal as singers prepare for the choir final performance which will also celebrate the group’s 25th year.
Among the singers will be one of Tasmania’s most celebrated recent exports, the award-winning Indigenous actor and singer Naarah, who is returning for the special show on Saturday.
As a 15-year-old girl “looking for answers”, Naarah found the Southern Gospel Choir and, such was her joy, she never really left.
“This music, this community here, has taught me how to be human,” she said.
The Tasmanian-born Gija woman grew up in Glenorchy and now attends one of the most prestigious singing schools in the world, studying a Masters of Music Theatre at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Naarah said she failed music in college but was given a second chance when she found voice coach Maria Lurighi and the choir community she sang with for 10 years.
“I learned how to sing. I learned how to express myself and even though the words might not be relevant to me, I found a meaning through them where I was able to give a message to those words,” she said.
She said there was an interesting history connecting Indigenous Australians and aspects of Christianity and the Bible.
“A lot of the Indigenous and First Nations songs around Australia are hymns just translated,” she said.
“There’s something very grounding about gospel music.”
Southern Gospel Choir founder and University of Tasmania School of Creative Arts and Media Associate Professor Andrew Legg said he spent the majority of his younger years travelling the US performing with and arranging for the premier African-American gospel choir talent of the time.
The Rosebery-born professor researches gospel music and its power as a communication tool, especially in African-American communities, and how that resonates with other oppressed communities across the world.
“For African-Americans, music is not just sound, it’s life, it’s your forebears, it’s the future, it’s the ground you walk; it’s everything,” Professor Legg said.
Professor Legg remembers a childhood in Rosebery with his Anglican priest father involving a collection of records from the likes of Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder.
He travelled around the United States staying with families and playing with choir after choir in the 1990s before returning to Tasmania bringing the energetic sounds of gospel choir with him – starting the Southern Gospel Choir at the request of the head of the conservatorium of music.
“He could see this community coming together of people singing hip-hop music, as it was known in those days, with wholesome, joyful, hopeful lyrics.
“It wasn’t about being Christian it was about the content and the feeling of it.
“Everybody wanted in because there was nothing like that here then,” Professor Legg said.
Acclaimed vocal coach Ms Lurighi grew up in country Queensland and said she resonated with the way Tasmanians such as Professor Legg and Naarah speak of being from a small place and creating community through music.
“There is something to be understood about standing shoulder to shoulder with other humans,” she said.
“It’s really important to tell those stories and connect them in a contemporary sense to our young people.
“This music, it could be about Tim Tams but it’s not, it’s about spirit, God or whatever thing that you believe in.
“If we are to understand contemporary music as it is, then it came out of gospel music,” she said.
The Southern Gospel Choir started with just 30 students from the conservatorium that grew into a choir of up to 300 with more than 3500 Tasmanians, including notable alumni such as Naarah, passing through the choir in 25 years.
On Saturday night many of the past performers will be joining Naarah on stage for the choir’s final sold-out performance.
“I don’t think anything has ever lifted the roof off the Theatre Royal but we will go the closest,” Professor Legg said.
Originally published as Tassie’s award-winning Southern Gospel Choir notable alumni take to the stage to cap off 25 years
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