The Sunshine Coast Choral Society was founded in 1994 by the late Neil Atkinson with assistance from Bruce Ramm, Sharon Coles and Jean and Alan Conwell. Jean was the accompanist for the Society until her retirement in 1999 which was followed by the appointment of Fay Baker, who capably filled the position until early 2005, at which time she became Assistant Musical Director until relinquishing that post in December 2005. Alan was the Treasurer for the Society from its inception until 1998. Auditions were held in May/June and rehearsals started in July with forty seven members.
Rehearsals were held in the Lecture Theatre at Matthew Flinders Anglican College. At that time the college was relatively new to the area and they were most supportive of the Choral Society as we struggled to get a financial footing and increase membership.
In these first few months we were able to prepare a few pieces for two charity concerts (Concert for Rwanda and the Drought Relief Concert) and the Mayor's Christmas Carols. In December 1994 we held our first concert in the Buderim Hall and performed John Rutter's "Gloria" and "The First Nowell" by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
In 1995 we ambitiously took on Handel's "Messiah" and gave a performance at Easter time in St. Mark's Anglican Church in Buderim with soloists Rachael Duncan, Therese Hayden, James Coady and Neil Atkinson who had to conduct the choir and sing the tenor solos! This performance was accompanied by Jean Conwell on the keyboard.
Haydn's "Creation" was performed with full orchestra in the Lecture Theatre at Matthew Flinders Anglican College in August 1995 with soloists Miriam Gordon, James Coady and Neil again taking on conducting and singing roles.
In 1996 we decided to branch out and attended the Queensland Eisteddfod in Ipswich and came home as Champion Small Choir. This year we also made a recording and introduced a "uniform" for the ladies after a lot of hard work by June O'Flynn (Wardrobe) and Carol Coggan and many others who helped with the cutting out. Also in 1996 the Spanish choir "Hodeiertz" visited our area and the Choral Society joined with them in a concert at the University of the Sunshine Coast.
We attended the Eisteddfod again in 1997 and were again Champion Small Choir. In 1997 the Queensland Symphony Orchestra toured Queensland to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Choirs from the different regions visited were invited to sing with the orchestra under the baton of Ola Rudner. The Sunshine Coast Choral Society was very proud to be invited to form the nucleus of the choir that performed with the Orchestra in the Nambour Civic Centre.
Five of the younger female members of the choir (Jenny Young, Trish Baker, Debbie Freeman, Desley MacDonald and Helen Peters) formed a small group and called themselves "After Five". They performed at several of our concerts in 1999/2000 and were a great hit with our audiences performing light pop music from the 1930s through to the 70s. Unfortunately after about eighteen months their lives moved in different directions and the group is no longer in existence.
In 2001 the Society decided to host an International Choral Festival and Workshop. The workshop was conducted by Dr Roy Wales, a distinguished British choral conductor and Mozart's "Requiem" was performed at the Sunshine Coast University in August of that year with Fay Baker on piano and the Sunshine Coast Choral Society with visiting choristers from other choirs in the region and from Brisbane. In this year we also combined with the touring Sydney Male Choir to present concerts at Kawana. Community Centre and the Good Shepherd Lutheran Hall, Noosaville.
Workshops were hosted again in 2002 and 2003 and featured Mendelssohn's "Elijah" (with the Napier Choir from New Zealand) conducted by Neil Atkinson and Haydn's "Creation" conducted by Dr Roy Wales. In August 2004 the International Workshop choir under Dr. Roy Wales performed the Verdi "Requiem". The accompanists for this performance were Jillianne Stoll and Fay Baker on two pianos and soloists were Louise Kennedy Soprano; Helena Mumford Mezzo Soprano Kenneth Collins Tenor; and Bill Cronk Bass.
In 2002 the Choral Society hosted the Sunshine Coast Choral Festival at the Coolurn Civic Centre. This festival brings together over 200 singers from many Sunshine Coast choirs for an afternoon of choral singing. The festival was not held in 2003 due to problems with insurance. These problems were sorted out by 2004 and the Sunshine Coast Choral Society again hosted the festival at the Baptist Centre, Maroochydore. A great time was had by all and it is hoped to continue with this festival on an annual basis.
Since 2001 the Society has performed Handel's "Messiah" every year in November/December and this has proved very popular with "Messiah" enthusiasts. Also at this time we introduced the "Scratch Messiah" where we invited other choristers to join us in choruses from Messiah. This also proved to be a very popular event.
The Choral Society has continued to grow in numbers and experience over the years and has performed many major works such as "Elijah" by Felix Mendelssohn (1998 and a workshop performance in 2002), "Requiem" and "Gloria" by John Rutter (1999), Gabriel Faure's "Requiem" and Vivaldi's "Gloria" (2001). In 2000 we joined with the Bach Choir from Brisbane to perform Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" with one performance in St. John's Cathedral, Brisbane and one at the Immanuel Lutheran Church, Buderim. These major work performances have generally been accompanied by an orchestra made up of Sunshine Coast musicians.
Choruses from Opera were also introduced to the Society's repertoire in 2002 and we have been fortunate in recent years to have international soprano, Louise Kennedy together with Susan Chapman and Geoffrey Ashenden from Opera Queensland, sing with us at a number of our concerts. The Sunshine Coast Choral Society has also been fortunate over the years to draw soloists from within our membership, notably, Carol Coggan, Barbara Groot, Sue Hornum Elizabeth Hood and Andrew Bums.
The Choral Society has performed regularly at community events such as Christmas Carols at various locations on the coast, the Organ Donors Thanksgiving Service in Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast Choral Festival as well as at various charity concerts with the Australian Army Band Brisbane at Caloundra Civic Centre and the Voices for Hospices 2003 at the Nambour Civic Centre.
In May 2004 our Founder/Music Director, Neil Atkinson, died after battling cancer for several years. He will be greatly missed by the choir and by individual members. Since early in 2004 year rehearsals were taken by the Assistant Conductor, Ross Jelf, who conducted the choir for our Tenth Anniversary Concert at the Maroochy Baptist Centre, on October 2nd.
In April 2005, the Choir appointed the internationally-recognised musician, Rita Paczian, as our new Music Director/Conductor, under whose leadership we had recently recorded a very successful live Christmas Concert. In September we performed a Vivaldi/Rutter program, in November a Faure Workshop of Rutter's Requiem, and in December gave two brilliant performances of Handel's Messiah (at Caloundra & Gympie) In this period the choir also appointed Lyn Bartholomew as our Accompanist.
2006 continued to be a great year for the choir, and we presented three major concerts. For 'Mozart 250', celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, we filled the Nambour Civic Centre where the choir presented his famous , and the lovely Clarinet Concerto featured Graham Evans as soloist. This was followed by a concert of 'Opera Favourites' in our new home, the Lake Kawana Community Centre, at Sportsman's Parade, Bokarina. In September we performed Mendelssohn's with many visiting choristers, in an International Weekend Workshop led by British conductor Dr Roy Wales, and our main concert of the year was a wonderful performance, in the original German text, of the (parts 1-3) by J S Bach. Our outstanding soloists included Martin Paroz, Christine Ferraro, and the celebrated German baritone, Hans-Georg Wimmer.
