Music, literature gets a leg up in Moorabool

MOORABOOL Shire Council plans to host four major music and literature events later this year under its Hide + Seek banner.

The Shire confirmed the events – in Bacchus Marsh, Ballan and Blackwood – would take place after receiving notification that its application for funding under the State Government’s Small Regional Presenters Program had been successful.

The program helps to attract high-quality artists to regional venues while building local skills and growing creative talent.

Two events will take place in Bacchus Marsh and one in each of Ballan and Blackwood.

The Shire will use them to build local audience engagement, creative participation and presenter capacity, leading to the next Hide + Seek Festival in 2027.

Mayor Cr Steve Venditti-Taylor said he was excited to start promoting the events, full details of which would be publicised in coming months.

“This is an opportunity to empower local presenters to bring music and cultural events to life, strengthening community connections and celebrating the diversity of our creative talent,” he said.

At this stage, the Shire is planning to run an event called Better Off Said and a Young Craft Writers Workshop in Bacchus Marsh; Songlines Live and Local, part of the Regional Arts Victoria (RAV) touring program, in Blackwood; and Thin Red Lines, a poetry event, in Ballan.

Better Off Said falls between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice, and is a spoken-word art salon where four guests share ‘the words I wish I’d said’, while a living eulogy honours someone or something still here to be celebrated.

The writers workshop, meanwhile, will be headed by poet and performer Emilie Zoey Baker and will be open to young writers of all experience levels.

Songlines Live and Local will be delivered in partnership by RAV and Songlines Aboriginal Music and will be a combination of a workshop and a live performance, supporting regional community presenters to host and showcase First Nations artists, music and culture.

Running for more than six years, Thin Red Lines is a quarterly poetry event co-curated by Thabani Tshuma and Georgia Kartas.

They will curate a selection of poetic duets, live music and literary performance for the Ballan event.