Evenings are quiet at Wesley Church in Geelong’s CBD, except on Mondays when a harmony of 80 voices drifts through the open doors.
Creativity Australia’s With One Voice Choir is a small community group providing residents with connection in one of Australia’s fastest-growing cities.
With more people moving to the town once dubbed a “sleepy hollow”, the risks of experiencing social isolation and loneliness are increasing, with some studies showing a link between big cities and higher rates of loneliness.
Ending Loneliness Together chair Michelle Lim warns of “significant health impacts” relating to loneliness, which at its most extreme can lead to “increased likelihood of earlier death”.
She warns one in three Australians are experiencing loneliness, compared to one in four prior to the pandemic.
But the Geelong residents who are members of the choir have found the effects of loneliness can be buffered with a weekly hour and a quarter of group singing.
It is a connection literally saving lives in this burgeoning community.
Composer Kym Dillon has been leading the With One Voice Choir in Geelong for more than 10 years. (ABC News: Harrison Tippet)
Standing behind a Roland keyboard at the front of the room each week is Kym Dillon, an energetic, personable, whirlwind of positivity who leads the choir through its sessions.
She is a composer and musician whose works have been commissioned by the likes of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and have been performed across the globe.
But here in Geelong, it is her role in bringing almost 100 disparate residents together that draws the most admiration.
“We give this kind of snapshot of humanity,” she says.
“We don’t try to iron it out into everyone sounding the same way or looking the same or acting the same.
“We try to celebrate their individual characters, but every single person’s voice is part of the overall fabric.
“That’s what makes it work so well, but it’s also so beautiful to me.”
In more than a decade of leading the choir, Kym has heard plenty of stories about members using the choir as a tool to create and maintain social connections.
“Some have told me that this is the one thing they can come out of their house for, and often the one thing that stopped them actually ending their life because they didn’t have a sense of community [previously].
“But here they feel part of a family, able to contribute, a sense of ownership.
“So it literally is a lifeline for some people, and that story is just very profound for me to hear.”
Jessica Walker feels she can be herself around members of the With One Voice Choir.(ABC News: Harrison Tippet)
During choir sessions the group stays seated as Kym walks them through each song, before the members stand to perform each piece together.
Jessica Walker spends a bit more time standing than most because she dances her way through each song, with each action helping her remember the words she cannot properly see on the projector.
“I joined the choir with my mum a while back,” Jessica says.
“I don’t know really why. I just needed something to do, something to make me happy and get rid of all the pent-up energy I had. Because I have autism, Asperger’s actually.
“I love it here, I love coming out of my shell, I love being me.
“I’m free to be me, whereas outside in society I feel the pressure of having to be like everybody else.”
“But I’m not like everybody else, which I’m proud of. I’m proud of not being like everybody else. I’m proud I have a disability. I love having a disability, I love saying I have one. Because it’s not really a disability, it’s more a way of different thinking, in my opinion.”
Not only has the choir become a whole new “family” for Jessica, it has also helped her deal with other personal trauma, with the group regularly performing a song written by her and Kym in honour of a lost friend.
“It’s helped me with the passing of a friend, which really just made me break down,” she says.
“I was thinking a lot about suicide actually, and just having a community around me that was like a family … having them in here every Monday night, it made me able to have a song that I was able to write and get out how I felt about her.”
Rory Wilson lost the use of his legs about nine years ago when his bike hurtled into a stationary truck in Portarlington.
Rory Wilson feels uplifted as soon as he arrives at choir on a Monday night. (ABC News: Harrison Tippet)
It was a catastrophic injury, but three strokes he suffered while in hospital had the greatest impact on his life.
“They did more damage in the long run than the crash ever did,” he says.
Rory joined the choir as a method of rehabilitation shortly after the crash, and never stopped turning up to sing alongside the handful of other men making up the small bass section.
“I come here on a Monday [and] I feel uplifted straight away,” he says.
“I look forward to coming here, and I love singing … it gives you a really good feeling.
“So whether it was doing anything for my brain or not is irrelevant. Just the singing alone is enjoyable. The social connection helps a lot.”
Rory’s carer Genevieve Pape — who used to run with him at the Geelong Cross Country Club before the crash — also comes to the choir each week, joining from the back of the room with other carers.
Rory and the bass section get their time to shine at the end of each session, when they lead the group singing Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight.
Anastasia Warden, 22, has found a sense of family at choir. (ABC News: Harrison Tippet)
While older people often derive the most benefit from the social connection provided by community groups such as this, there are no age limitations at this choir.
Anastasia Warden was nine when she joined. Now 22, she is another member who just never stopped coming along after experiencing the bond the group provided.
“Singing gave me the voice that I wasn’t allowed to have from a young age,” she says.
“I had a pretty unfortunate childhood, but I always found singing was the best way to express feelings that were buried deep within, and the family atmosphere we have here is just quite extraordinary,
“I grew up not really knowing what a family was.
“I grew up not knowing how it felt to sit at a dinner table and be together as one, but when I come here at choir I had my own kind of grandmother and my own kind of aunty and uncle, and it was just a really amazing feeling.
“It was the best replacement for what I should have had at home.”
Anastasia would love to be a solo singer one day, such is the impact the choir has had on her.
“I love it. Singing’s the most powerful thing on Earth,” she says.
“It just brings so many people together.”
The With One Voice Choir in Geelong has helped Rodney Smith get accustomed to large crowds again. (ABC News: Harrison Tippet)
Rodney Smith always loved to sing, but a series of health problems severely limited his opportunities to do it.
He joined a choir which soon disbanded before he found his way to With One Voice in Geelong.
“I have had four strokes and that involves holes in my brain,” he says.
“And I am a believer that music is the way the brain likes to communicate, and so if you’re involved in music one way or the other, it is helpful to the brain.
“My recovery has been considerable, and I would base a lot of that recovery on my involvement with music.
“If I was not involved in music, I would have to believe that I would not have recovered as far as I have.
“I couldn’t walk and I couldn’t talk at one point, so I’ve come a bit of a way back.”
Rodney sees the social connections being created and strengthened in this small church room, and is highly aware of the benefits he’s derived from being a part of the group.
“Connection is important because I don’t communicate very well, and in large crowds I am lost, so getting accustomed to large crowds in this environment is a way of easing back into that,” he says.
“That is an involvement I have found useful in developing my own self, my own confidence.”
If your Palm Beach County July has been a little less musical than normal, you’re not imagining things. The Palm Beach County Chamber Music Festival, which has presented concerts each summer since 1992, went on hiatus this year, primarily because of a lack of funds. But the organizers of the group say they want to be back in the summer of 2024, and are mounting a fundraising campaign to do so. Karen Fuller, a flutist and one of the three founders of […]
