The Festival of Voice 2004:

• 12 concerts and 17 workshops from Friday night to Sunday night
• Performances by a huge cast:
  • Headliners Tony Backhouse and The Heavenly Lights, Rachel Hore and Lenny Marks and Mal Webb
  • Also starring the Band of Angels Gospel Choir, Beth Crystal, Cameo, Claudette Mountjoy, The Barbaras, Delta Forse, Don Smith, Gay and Lesbian Singers, Handful of Soul, Hypertheatre, Lile, Giri Mazzella, Midlife Critics, WA Nightingale Chorale, Psallite, Quindalup Harmony, Quintessence, Ribbons and Rainbows, Safety in Numbers, Splintered Timbre, Summerhouse, Ros and Steve Barnes, The Real Sing, Tuxedo Junction, Working Voices.
• Workshops in song, vocal techniques and storytelling.

Rachel Hore in her workshop

A great deal of work by the festival committee and many volunteers brought together our second show. Congratulations and thanks are due to all of them!

We expanded and diversified the festival, and introduced a new venue - the Scout Hall - to take the larger audience we were anticipating. We also ran two final concerts - a Gospel Concert in the Civic Centre and a World Music Concert in the Scout Hall. The audiences then came back together to provide not one but two big sings - at the end of the end! No-one needed to miss out on a place in the finales!

Mal Webb standing in with the Heavenly Lights

Our workshops were up from 12 to 17, and we staged 12 concerts - up from six last year. We had three wonderful acts from the eastern states in the Heavenly Lights, Rachel Hore and Mal Webb, and more great talent from Western Australia. We were really pleased to be able to welcome a number of new groups to the festival, and just as happy to welcome back many groups from the inaugural festival.

Some of our workshops were back from last year, and joined heaps of new workshops. The workshop program covered a range of themes - pure singing, singing with improvisation, vocal skills, performance skills, songwriting and storytelling. We even had a meditation and warm-up to start each day. The same was true of the concerts. We programmed them to provide choices, but even though most acts performed twice or more you were left wanting more! The themed concerts gave an indication of the kind of material to be covered, although some of the themes were more specific than others, and the occasional red herring was found.

Working Voices

Because this is a festival of voice, we took pride in being able to field a great bunch of comperes for the concerts, who provided plenty of incidental entertainment in their various styles - thanks to Giri Mazella and Don Smith.

This year we received major sponsorship from SmokeFree WA, presented by Healthway and the Asthma Foundation, and support from a range of other groups. The Festival was a SmokeFree event, and we were diligent in ensuring this remained the case. All venues and all approaches (foyers, balconies etc.) were smoke-free for the duration of the event.

Handful of Soul

Our special thanks to the groups and choirs that made this event happen through their support, and to our audience, wherever you came from.