Ararat ready for Sweet Mona’s

Ballarat’s Sweet Mona’s Choir will perform at Ararat College arts centre on Sunday.

Rural Australians for Refugees has organised the 2pm concert and will donate proceeds from the event to support refugees. Patrons will pay $20.

Audiences have described Sweet Mona’s Choir, which has performed for more than 20 years with ‘energetic’ stage presence and ‘stunning’ vocals, as ‘vibrant, harmonically magnificent’.

The choir is made up of between 30 and 40 singers from diverse backgrounds and ages.

It started in the mid-1990s when an enterprising teacher used choral singing as an innovative way to teach voice skills in a performing arts course.

Sweet Mona’s Choir has since evolved, the complexity and variety of arrangements increasing as the choir reached a professional standard that surpassed its original purpose.

Directed by Stella Savy, the choir’s sound ranges ‘from a rich, deep resonance to a lively, energetic tone, to haunting melodies that stay with you long after the performance is over’.

The choir focuses on a capella and rhythm, performing a broad range of contemporary, world and gospel music, including original gospel arrangements.

Sweet Mona’s Choir is renowned for its original arrangements and has worked with leading Australian and international musicians.

It has performed at a wide range of venues including music festivals from Apollo Bay to Brunswick, and from churches, weddings and community events to Federation Square in the heart of Melbourne.