Like father, like son
Paolo Fabris is following in his father’s footsteps, creating a choir of keen singers. Those singers are now following in his footsteps ... all the way to Italy
After watching his father’s choir perform in Italy last year, Paolo Fabris was left shivering with anticipation.
His father founded the Coro Aspis Milano 56 years ago and it had a huge influence on young Paolo’s life.
“That choir has been in my life since I was a little baby,” he said.
“Every Wednesday I would go with my dad to rehearsal and, while I never officially sang, it’s the reason why I’m in chorale music and the reason why I’m a musician.”
After returning to watch the choir perform in 2016, Fabris was offered an exciting opportunity — to take his own choir, Darwin’s VoxCrox, to Italy to sing with Coro Aspis Milano in September this year. “My mum was sitting beside me and she looked at me and said ‘is he (the person who invited us) serious?’,” Fabris said. “I looked at her and said ‘I have no idea! I never heard this before’. “The whole audience started clapping so I couldn’t say no — it felt like a marriage proposal. “It was very exciting.”
After the initial rush wore off, Fabris realised the logistical challenge that lay ahead.
How was he going to raise enough money in 12 months to get more than 40 choir members from Darwin to Italy, while at the same time organising a performance that would do his father proud?
“I started shivering,” he said.
“There were a million questions through my mind. “Are they going to like it? Where am I going to find the money? But the more I thought about it, the more I thought ‘yes, we can do this’.” Once he returned to Darwin he told the good news to the choir members. “I said ‘how about we go to Italy?’,” he said.
“They all started laughing and were so excited they couldn’t stay sitting on their seats.
“At this point I realised I can’t turn back.”
For the choir’s oldest member, Joan Fensom, 84, going to Italy will mean she can have a European reunion with her sister, who she hasn’t seen for 26 years.
Ms Fensom grew up in England, but never had the opportunity to travel or see Italy before she came to Australia in 1962.
“When we finish with VoxCrox, my sister is coming to Milan and we’re going to spend the week together,” she said.
“... there was one of my colleagues from Italy on screen in a blockbuster movie. I burst into tears — look at me ushering in Palmerston and he’s in a Hollywood film”
“I think we’ll spend the first few days talking, but Paolo tells me it’s only an hour to Switzerland, so we might pop over there.”
Ms Fensom has been singing all her life and VoxCrox is an important part of what gets her out of bed every day.
After losing her husband seven years ago, she found she needed something to help her get through the tough time.
“I had to start all over again,” she said.
“So I found my love of singing — that’s what keeps me going.
“My neighbours hear me singing at home all the time.
“I just love it. I used to sing by myself when I was young, but as you get older you lose confidence doing that, so I’ve been in choirs for a few years.”
For Fabris, the choir helps him follow his passion for music, and he can’t wait to return to Milan to perform with the choir that influenced his life so much — and sang at his baptism.
“It’s extremely exciting and scary at the same time — scary because there’s the father-son expectation, and exciting because I’ve wanted this for all my life,” he said.
“I don’t think I’m going to hold myself in one piece. I can be very emotional, one or two tears will definitely run down my face.
“I don’t think my dad will be able to keep his face straight, he will cry for sure.”
It’s been a long journey for Fabris from his home in Milan to his new life in Darwin, which began about 10 years ago.
His love for music led him to musical theatre in Italy, where he was a well-known performer whose face often appeared on billboards and the side of buses. But love brought him to Australia.
“I met my partner in Melbourne, and we moved to Darwin because of my job,” he said
“It was a bit of a shock moving from Milan to Melbourne and then from Melbourne to Darwin.
“The first thought was, no way I’m living here — there’s no way I’m staying here.”
Fabris fell into depression after realising how different Darwin was to the glitz of his former life in Milan.
“The shock was more cultural, coming from fancy parties in Milan to wearing thongs and singlets,” he said.
It really hit home when he had to work two jobs to make ends meet.
“When I arrived in Darwin I only had a part-time job at CDU, so I started working in the cinema,” he said.
“I remember working as an usher, and one day I opened the door of cinema number four and we were projecting a James Bond movie, and there was one of my colleagues from Italy on screen in a blockbuster movie. “I burst into tears — look at me ushering in Palmerston and he’s in a Hollywood film. “That was a very important moment of my life because that’s the moment I realised what I’d left behind.” But it didn’t take long for the beauty of Darwin and the community to make itself known, and 10 years later there’s no looking back for Fabris. “No mater if it’s less fancy, or less public, it’s indeed an incredibly beautiful life,” he said.
“This new life is what I was looking for without knowing it. I had no idea I would have been so happy — look at me, I’m a singing teacher and I have an amazing office at CDU and then I have my family.
“My family here is my choir. It’s so much bigger than my family in Italy and my family is very big — I’m a proper Italian.”
Now Fabris is excited to share his new life with his old, and show his friends and family in Milan the reason he is still in Darwin after all these years.
And it is fitting he now lives in the NT, as in Italy all the documentaries about Australia feature the incredible landscape of the Territory.
“When I arrived in Melbourne I was disappointed because it was not so different to my country, but then we moved to the Territory. I went ‘now I get it, this is the Australia we know in Europe’,” he said.
After Milan the VoxCrox choir will perform in Como and Pontremoli, then take part in a flashmob style performance in Florence and Perugia.
Their repertoire is firmly based in their Aussie roots, and includes the iconic Waltzing Matlida and Arafura Pearl by Darwin talent Ali Mills.
During two of the shows the choir will perform alongside imagery of the Northern Territory on a big screen.
“I thought ‘well, I live in the Australia they know, I’m going to bring that Australia to Italy’,” Fabris said.
The choir is seeking community support to help fund travel expenses. A gala dinner, where guests will get a sneak peek of what the choir has planned for Italy, will take place next Saturday at the Italian Club in Marrara. Tickets cost $35. Call 8945 0583. To contribute to the cause visit gofundme.com/voxcrox