Victoria’s heavenly voices will come to Geelong for the Windfire Choir and Musical Ensemble’s Christmas concert next Friday.
Opera artists Lee Abrahmsen, Belinda Paterson, Michael Petruccelli and Nicholas Dinopoulos will join the choir singing the songs of the season.
Geelong-based award-winning artist Abrahmsen will fill St Mary’s Basilica with the soaring sounds which have won her operatic glory.
The 36-year-old has been a regular at the church’s concerts since moving back to her childhood home of Geelong five years ago.
“It’s beautiful,” she told the Indy. “The acoustics are like a bathroom, really. They make everything sound wonderful.”
Abrahmsen has won a number of Music and Opera Singing Trust awards and other singing accolades.
She was a finalist in the Covent Garden National Studio Scholarship, the German Operatic Award and the Australian Youth Aria.
Abrahmsen performs regularly with the Victorian Opera and Melbourne Opera, and has toured the UK, Western Europe, Japan and China.
She sang a recital to a packed house at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London’s Trafalgar Square in 2013, winning standing ovation during her encore.
“I was told it was rare for English audiences to stand up for artists, so that was pretty special,” she said.
Melbourne-based mezzo Belinda Paterson has performed regularly with the Opera Australia Melbourne Chorus since 2000.
She has performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl and toured with Opera Australia.
Up-and-coming tenor Michael Petruccelli and bass-baritone Nicholas Dinopoulos have been establishing themselves on Melbourne’s operatic scene.
The University of Melbourne graduates have played a number of roles for the Victorian Opera and have performed live on radio.
Young New Zealand violinist Hilary Hayes will join the operatic quartet performing Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending.
The Windfire Choir has been performing since 2013 and features talented singers and musicians from Geelong, the Bellarine, Surf Coast and Colac.
The choir provides scholarships for aspiring young singers. Its three current scholars, aged 16 to 20, will sing a carol in French during the concert.
Abrahmsen teaches one of the scholars and was a member of the Ormond Choir as a teenager.
“There’s not much available like that in Geelong,” she said.
“I think every young singer should be in a choir or a chorus just to learn the basic skills.”
For more information, visit musicatthebasilica.org.au.
