Gondwana Choirs comprises the most accomplished choral groups of young people in Australia. The organisation is synonymous with performance excellence and has a reputation for the highest standards of young people’s choral music in Australia and internationally.
When Lyn Williams OAM created the Sydney Children’s Choir in 1989, she wanted audiences to experience the unique and captivating sound of a well-trained children’s choir. From this single choir, the organisation now includes over 500 children in the Sydney Children’s Choir program; 350 choristers, composers and conductors in Gondwana National Choral School; and the choral hubs for the Gondwana Indigenous Children’s Choir in Cairns and Sydney.
Sydney Children’s Choir and the two national ensembles, Gondwana Voices and Gondwana Chorale, regularly perform with the country’s leading orchestras and ensembles in the great symphonic works and new music by Australian composers. Gondwana Indigenous Children’s Choir has a proud record of commissioning and performing works in Indigenous languages and count performers such as Kate Miller-Heidke, Christine Anu and Jessica Mauboy among their collaborators. SCC and GICC most recently performed with the world-renowned Vienna Boys Choir in Songs of My Country in Sydney and Cairns in 2017.
Lyn Williams’ extraordinary vision for the organisation includes many exciting performing opportunities for all of the choirs. Most recently, Marliya, a choir made up of choristers from Cairns, performed a new full-length stage work called Spinifex Gum at the Adelaide Festival. Written by singer/song writer Felix Riebl, the work was conducted by Lyn Williams and featured Peter Garrett, Emma Donovan and Briggs.
Alumni of Gondwana Choirs perform in opera companies and orchestras worldwide. They contribute to Australian culture as composers, conductors, music teachers and pop artists they are medical professionals, business leaders and social justice advocates, whose lifelong love of music fostered by Gondwana Choirs draws them to become the next generation of arts practitioners, audiences and philanthropists.