Upcoming Events 2022

FREE PUBLIC SINGING WORKSHOP/AUDITIONS

Saturday 23 APRIL - 2-5pm

Led by River City Voices' Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, Dr Sarah Penicka-Smith, this is your chance to let your hair down and have a group sing (maybe your first in a very long time!) and learn some tips along the way about:

​

• optimum breathing

• vocal hygiene

• healthy warm-up exercises

• navigating vocal scores

​

And if you think you'd like to join the choir for its remaining 2022 programs, then bring along some music as we'll be saving some time to audition interested singers.

​

To register your interest in the workshop and book your spot , please EMAIL with your name, phone number, voice type and whether or not you might like to audition !

​

VENUE: Cloisters Hall, St Patrick's Cathedral Precinct, 1 Marist Place, Parramatta

​

SONGS OF DESTINY

CHORAL & ORCHESTRAL CONCERT

Sunday 22 May - 4 - 5.15pm

The first concert in RCV's 

LUSCIOUS series

Parramatta’s own symphonic choir River City Voices returns to local stages in 2022 with Songs of Destiny.

We welcome as guests the lush sound of the Willoughby Symphony and Willoughby Symphony Choir as they join us in Parramatta for the very first time.

With over 100 performers on stage, scale the heights of heaven with Johannes Brahms’ rarely heard Song of Destiny (Schicksalslied), and thrill to the anger of the Gods in his Song of the Fates (Gesang der Parzen). This powerful music paints radically different pictures of the powers that control our destinies.

​

But can we take charge of our own futures?

Local Indigenous composers Troy Russell (The Chant*) and Elizabeth Sheppard (Gandangarragal*) invite us to explore the way forward, in new music of courage and hope. 

Read about the artists below.

​

Featuring River City Voices, Willoughby Symphony & Willoughby Symphony Choir, conducted by Sarah Penicka-Smith & Peter Ellis.

​

​

​

​

*world premieres, supported by JBS&G

​

Willoughby Symphony & Willoughby Symphony Choir appear courtesy of Willoughby City Council 

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS

Album release

A collaboration with talented neurodiverse musicians from Parramatta's Arts & Cultural Exchange (A.C.E.) program Club Weld.

The project - Welded Voices -  was specifically devised to keep artists and choristers engaged despite the challenges and fluctuating nature of COVID.

Six songs from six composers were arranged by RCV's Artistic Director Sarah Penicka-Smith, rehearsed and recorded with Chris Hamer-Smith, and then edited and mastered.

Global release ****JUNE 11 2022 ****

​

Stay tuned for the LIVE performances

in early September
 

River City Voices gratefully acknowledges funding support from a City of Parramatta Council's Creative Economy grant.

​

(Basses Dominic Wong and Huw Smith in ACE's recording studio).

​

Hi everyone! I was born on Wurundjeri country (now known as Melbourne, Australia), and I grew up on Kaurna Country (Adelaide, South Australia). My Mum and Dad decided to live in Kaurna Country because it was halfway between their birth Countries - Whadjuk Noongarup (Perth, Western Australia), and Boonwurrung Country (Wonthaggi, Victoria). We could stay in touch with both sides that way! Thanks to my hard working Mum and Dad, the University of Adelaide, Sydney University, Eora Aboriginal College, Tranby Aboriginal College, Mooghalin Arts, the Australian Music Centre, and the Australian National University, I received a powerful developmental mix of Western and Indigenous education, that enables me, as a mature student, to undertake music research.

​

In 2016 I was selected for an ANU Internship in Indigenous Composition, and this led to an ANU Postgraduate Research Scholarship, and my current HDR research in Indigenous Composition. I'm passionate about my Indigenous heritage, and the power of contemporary tradition-based music to catalyse constructive dialogue and inclusive academic thinking that connects with grass roots communities and cultures of all kinds.

At The Australian National University I do full time Research by Composition Practice, via online and professional development workshops and programs for ANU researchers, as well as consulting with Supervisor Dr. Sainsbury, and doing composition commissions. From time to time I post on my Elizabeth Sheppard Music, Western Sydney Reconciliation Review and Australian Church Music WordPress sites, and also write scholarly papers, books and book chapters about Indigenous music and composition, with a special interest in healing what I call, Australia's Music Apartheid Gap.

​