Choir looks to welcome new director as tides celebrate 17 years

THE Tides of Welcome choir is all about musical expression, local community spirit and the sheer joy of singing together.
The Queenscliff community choir has recently celebrated its seventeenth birthday after being established in 2002 as a project of the Queenscliffe Neighbourhood House.
The choir has always had the Neighbourhood House at its heart and rehearses there regularly on Thursday nights with thirty-five members and a keen waiting list.
The Tides of Welcome perform each year at the Queenscliff Uniting Church and the Queenscliff Music Festival.
Apart from their own individual performance as a choir at the music festival, they will often be invited to sing with well-known visiting artists such as Gabriella Cohen, Wayne Jury, the late Chris Wilson, Dave Steele and Mamma Kin and Spender, just to name just a few.
In last year’s QMF, they were privileged to be involved in the performance of Gurrumul’s DJARIMIRRI, which included an orchestral arrangement of the entire album, which subsequently won multiple national and international awards.
The Tides of Welcome have also performed at Geelong After Dark, Mountain to Mouth, Barwon Head’s Festival of the Sea and even a wedding proposal and wedding.
The choir has had a number of directors over the years including Sarah Carroll, Rose Bygrave, Tiffany Eckhardt and currently, Andrea Robertson for the last five years.
Andrea has diversified the choir’s sound in many ways and intertwines a number of musical genres such as gospel, traditional, soul and blues.
Andrea, an award-winning singer/songwriter in her own right, also composes songs specifically for the choir.
Over its history, the choir has produced four CDs.
Andrea led the choir to perform and record a live performance at Queenscliff Uniting Church by local sound engineer, Nick Huggins in August 2018.
With Andrea’s career blossoming after three albums, the winning of the Ross Lipson award at QMF in 2016 and the QMF Emerging Artist Grant in 2017, multiple short-listings for the ASA National Songwriting Competitions in recent years (including a 4th Place in the Country Category in 2018), touring and invitations to perform widely, she is reluctantly saying goodbye to the Tides of Welcome at the end of 2019.
If you know someone who may be interested in applying for the position of Tides of Welcome choir director, ask them to contact Queenscliff Neighbourhood House on 5258 3367.
Applications close on November 4.
Make sure you catch the Tides of Welcome at QMF 2019 or check out their website
tidesofwelcome.weebly.com or find them on Facebook and Instagram.