UNDETERRED by a blackout, students at Tuncurry Primary School joyfully lifted their voices in song recently in a choir that was anything but ordinary. This choir boasted over 500 000 voices, from kindergarten up to year 12.
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“It’s just an amazing experience,” said Kerri Knight, dubbed ‘music woman’ for Tuncurry Primary School. “Counting down and singing with the rest of Australia - everyone just loves it.”
As Australia’s largest music education program, the Music: Count Us In program is now in its eighth year, and is growing steadily in numbers.
Recognising that many classroom teachers feel ill equipped to teach music, the federally funded program is designed to raise the status of music in Australian schools and highlight the important role that music plays in educational development.
This year more than 2000 teachers signed up to receive professional development in lesson plans, musical arrangements, video resources and workshops.
The annual highlight is National Song Day, with a giant sing-along across 2100 schools. In a performance which takes place at the same time on the same day, children across Australia sing a song specially written for the event by fellow students.
This year, mid north coast students Angus Gill from Port Macquarie and Nathan Wendt from Coffs Harbour were amongst the five lucky students to be selected for the songwriting session, which was mentored by former National Boys Choir singer turned Cat Empire musician Harry James Angus, and the program’s ambassador and music producer and arranger John Foreman.
“I am honoured to be part of a program that has such a wonderful impact on school communities,” said John.
“I am constantly inspired by teachers’ commitment to developing their skills in order to provide students with much needed music education”.
This year’s collaborative songwriting session resulted in ‘Paint You a Song’, which Tuncurry students learnt and rehearsed. Eleven schools from the Great Lakes and Manning region took part in the event.
Unfortunately the day’s electricity blackout put a quick end to the planned webstream linking Tuncurry to Sydney, but the students were undeterred. Counting down the old fashioned way to 1230 pm in mild darkness with an enthusiasm that could have been heard across the country, cyberspace fled the hall as the whole school was led in song by the school choir to produce a resounding rendition of ‘Paint You a Song’, complete with actions, accompanying the other 600 000 voices across the country.
It must have been loud in outer space.
