Singers to ring in Australian carols

A FIGUREHEAD of Ballarat’s choral composing history is set to be celebrated with an upcoming concert.

Later this month, vocalists from Cordelia’s Potted Operas, with Grace Notes Singers and Huntingtower Student Choir will perform a program of Christmas carols with a focus on the works of Ballarat composer William G James.

Cordelia’s Potted Operas founder Stee Cordelia said James’ works have long represented Christmas in Australia for her.

“I came out here from Scotland for a year to teach at a private girls’ school in Melbourne,” she said. “Christmas was coming up and everyone was getting excited.

“I was thinking it was going to be all white-Christmas pieces reminding me of Scotland, but they had a special choir performance and William James appeared.

“The choir sang his carols he’d written with John Wheeler. Every Christmas I think of that event. It gave me a picture of Christmas in Australia with the birds and the weather.”

As well as Christmas carol classics, the program will highlight James’ Christmas carols he wrote with lyrics by ABC staff writer John Wheeler in the 1940s and 1950s.

Cordelia said she hopes the concert will give attendees a similar appreciation for James’ carols which she’s had for about five decades.

“It’s the thrill of closing your eyes and imagining Christmas in Australia,” she said. “These carols speak to the Australian condition.

“It’s the colours, the climate, the nature, the birds, and animals. You don’t get that European picture in your head because it’s not about snow and sleighbells.”

Cordelia’s Potted Operas’ Australian Christmas Carols concert will take place on Saturday 16 December from 3pm at the Anglican Cathedral Church of Christ the King.

Tickets are $10 children and $30 adult and can be booked at bit.ly/40W2qUm.