Conductor: Beth Tonissen

Accompanist: Lynette Tung

Membership of the choir is open to all adults who love to sing. Ability to read music isn’t vital, but it certainly helps! Whether or not you have sung with a choir before, we offer the chance for you to enjoy the experience.
Aspiring singers are invited to join us for a night; if you decide to join, we would ask that membership is paid by the 4th week of the year’s rehearsals.
Members are expected to make a commitment for regular attendance, and participation in performances.

Annual subscription: $40

Monday nights 8-10

Hamilton & Alexandra College Music Studio
MacPherson St
Hamilton

Hamilton Singers began thirty years ago. Originally it was the component of the drama-music company, "Dramus", that wanted to keep on singing long after the annual musical production took its last curtain call for the season. The Dramus Theatre Choir was formed: so while the more dramatically-inclined took to the stage, the singers squatted on miniature chairs in the infant department of Gray Street Primary School and sang - for the love of it.

We've come a long way since then, of course. We moved into the new Barbara Critten Music Centre when it opened in 1980, and that was our rehearsal home until just a couple of months ago. Now we enjoy the hospitality of Hamilton & Alexandra College and their Music Studio. In 1983 the choir adopted its name, Hamilton Singers. In 2003 we incorporated as an Association.

But the pleasure of singing in a choir, of being one of the voices in the big smooth sound, is still what holds us together. We grow to 40 singers at times, shrink to 20 at others, often influenced by the cold winter nights and the long country drives which many of us do to practice each week.

Our musical repertoire is eclectic, and in any one year we may prepare for performance Faure's Requiem, selections from Rodgers and Hammerstein, a Schubert Mass, and Paul Simon songs. We pride ourselves on aiming to represent all the tastes of our members, and of our audiences.

Annually the choir participates in the Western District Choirs Festival, which rotates host cities from members as far apart as Millicent to Colac. We also are staunch supporters of Hamilton Eisteddfod; we present a Christmas carols concert, and members travel to Port Fairy after that each year to join Bruce McRae for the "Messiah". Over the years we have ventured to other eisteddfods, and, with some success, to South Street, Ballarat.

We have had the pleasure of singing at weddings, sometimes of our own members, and the sadness of funerals, for those whom we have lost.

In between regular commitments, we usually manage to present a performance in Hamilton's PAC, or the art gallery, or in one of the beautiful churches. This varies from year to year, and may take the form of a concert of a range of songs and short choral pieces, or a longer work. Twice we have presented our own “Messiah”.

Sounds informal, doesn't it? Well it is, rather. But while we are happy to be singing, we nevertheless enjoy getting it right. Our men have been famously remembered by an eisteddfod adjudicator as “national living treasures”. Our conductors (we have had six in our history) have been talented musicians, and we have earned our excellent reputation for fine singing largely through their skills and dedication. There is nothing casual about our concern for quality in our music.

We are farmers and farmers' wives, a printer, teachers, scientists, secretaries, nurses. Some of us have driven over 100 km to get here. Most of us are music amateurs, but in the true sense of the word. In a small rural city, culture may indeed flourish, and we look forward to another 30 years for Hamilton Singers.