Singing for social justice

Raising awareness: Members of ACU's Big Sing for a Big Cause choir are preparing to perform in Ballarat later this month. Photo: SUPPLIED

COMPOSER Dr Kathleen McGuire is marking a decade of her choral work Street Requiem with a new community music project.

Australian Catholic University’s Big Sing for a Big Cause will raise funds for people struggling to access secure accommodation and free tickets will be given to members of the community experiencing homelessness.

There will be two concerts, one held at St Patrick’s College Ballarat on Saturday 24 August and a second at St Patrick’s Cathedral Melbourne on Sunday 25 August.

Street Requiem, by McGuire and fellow composers Andy Payne and Jonathan Welch, is about growing poverty and violence on the streets.

The program will also feature new music by McGuire and Payne which gives a voice to people experiencing homelessness.

The performance will include a choir and orchestra of students and staff from ACU, where McGuire is a senior lecturer in music education, and secondary school students and singers from the wider community.

“I am thrilled to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Street Requiem with some of my own students and colleagues from ACU, and honoured guests from Victoria and New Zealand, to stand up for the lives of people who have tragically died on our streets,” McGuire said.

“Street Requiem is a composition remarkably close to my heart, as someone who has conducted choirs and community music projects with people experiencing homelessness in Australia and the United States of America, and sadly, having witnessed students experiencing their own housing crises.

“As a music educator, I believe in the power of community music-making to enact social justice, impact hearts and minds, and change lives.”

Since Street Requiem premiered in 2014, it has been performed more than 30 times around the world by 6000 people, raising more than $250,000 for charity.

Money raised from the performances will go towards ACU’s urgent financial hardship grant, and Peplow House Crisis Accommodation Support in Ballarat, which is a service of CatholicCare Victoria.

Tickets can be purchased at bit.ly/3LGqnZc.