Global tunes at fundraiser for Lifeline

CLASSIC New Orleans blues music and a Maori folk song will be on the setlist when A Musical Journey – Around the World in 80 Minutes takes place in Ballarat on Sunday 6 October.

The fundraising concert, to benefit Lifeline Ballarat, will be held at the Ballarat Central Uniting Church on the corner of Dana Street and Lydiard Street South from 2pm to 3.30pm.

All money raised will go directly to the organisation to support its work in providing training and education in suicide awareness and prevention, and crisis support.

Specifically, it will be used to deliver free ‘safeTALK’ workshops, which teach people how to recognise, respond to and refer people who may be displaying thoughts of suicide.

The concert will be headlined by The Little Brass Band, a local quintet that appears regularly at Ballarat events, with guest The Bakery Hill Band, which performs Irish music in the Australian Celtic tradition.

The event is being organised by Janice Lynn, a crisis support worker and volunteer with Lifeline, and manager of The Little Brass Band.

Ms Lynn arranged a similar concert last year, with child and maternal health nurses the beneficiaries.

“Because I’m involved in music as well as Lifeline I thought it was a nice way of raising money,” she said of last year’s event.

“I’m already planning next year’s.”

Ms Lynn agreed the concert and the funding target are topical, with World Suicide Prevention Day and other related events taking place this month.

“There are nine suicides a day over Australia,” she said.

“A lot of people think it’s just a kindly-meant person who’s there on the line and is there when people want to talk [at Lifeline].

“But we do a lot of training and professional development every year. It’s quite a lot of time, even as a volunteer, that you have to spend as well.”

Ms Lynn said the concert will begin with Australian music before traveling around the world to Asia, Europe, America, Britain and, of course, Ireland.

“We’ve got some really lovely folk songs from around the world,” she said.

The playlist will include Korean and Japanese folk songs, the South African anthem Nkosi Sikelel Afrika, What a Wonderful World made famous by Louis Armstrong, a Maori folk song and classics from New Orleans.

The finale will be Peter Allen’s I Still Call Australia Home, arranged by brass band trombone player Cassandra Hiscock. Raffael Pankhurst will appear as guest vocalist.

Tickets are $20 and $10 for concessions, with children under 12 admitted free. They are available at trybooking.com/events/landing/1280820.