Victoria Welsh Choir

Vic Welsh and the Community
Vic Welsh a'r Gymuned

Victoria Welsh Choir is committed to giving something back to the community that supports us. In particular:

We donate our services to Welsh Churches in Victoria to lead the singing at Cymanfaoedd Canu Hymn Festivals
We have also donated our services to the Returned and Services League for public events, notably the annual Anzac Day service at the Shrine of Remembrance and Remembrance Day service at the Springvale War Cemetery

Details follow.

Vic Welsh at the RSL Remembrance Day Service at Springvale

Vic Welsh & the Welsh Church
Vic Welsh a'r Eglwys Gymreig

Victoria Welsh Choir has had a long association with the Welsh Church in Victoria. We led the singing at a Cymanfa Ganu Hymn Festival held by the Welsh Church in LaTrobe St Melbourne for the first time in 1981, the year after we were founded, and have done so some forty times since. We have also twice fulfilled the same role at the Carmel Welsh Church at Sebastopol in Ballarat. And in 1997 at the Melbourne Welsh Church we took part in a recording of the television program Dechrau Canu Dechrau Canmol produced by the Welsh Channel S4C.

Gŵyl Dewi Sant, the feast of St David, patron saint of Wales, falls on 1st March. To celebrate the occasion, since 1999 we have helped the Welsh Church in Melbourne bring a conductor out from Wales to conduct both the Gymanfa Ganu put on by the church and our own concert. These conductors have included Robert Nicholls (five times), Alun Guy (four times), John S Davies and Geraint Roberts (each twice), Alun Tregelles Williams, John Hugh Thomas, and in 2012, 2014 and 2018 the first woman to fill the role, Ilid Anne Jones.

Vic Welsh and the RSL
Vic Welsh a'r RSL

Victoria Welsh Choir has had a close relationship with the veterans’ community and the Returned and Services League (RSL). We have been the official choir at the RSL State Branch Remembrance Day Service at Springvale War Cemetery in November every year from 2004 to 2019 (except for three years when we were away on tour).

We also filled this role at:

The Anzac Day Commemoration Service at the Shrine of Remembrance six times between 1984 and 1993, and annually from 1996 to 2010 – twenty-one times in all
The Anzac Day Dawn Service from 2004 to 2010
The memorial service for Sir Edward “Weary” Dunlop at his statue in St Kilda Rd on his birthday, 12th July, each year from 2002 to 2010
The opening of the ex-POW memorial at Ballarat in February 2004
The Victory in the Pacific Commemoration Service at the Shrine in August 2005

After the 2010 Anzac Day services the RSL wrote to us:

"The Choir as always added something very special to the music, and your interaction with the Navy Band was first class.

Our Dawn Service, in particular, would simply not be the same without your presence."

Victoria Welsh Choir at the Shrine on Anzac Day
Photo Glynis Rose

Ross dreaming up the New Directions project

Victoria Welsh Choir Scholarship
(formerly Ross Hartnell Memorial Scholarship)

Ross Hartnell joined Vic Welsh in 1984, and was a committee member for some years. In 1995 he was a driving force behind the New Directions project, which among other things reformed the choir’s structure by identifying the numerous tasks which need to be done and devolving responsibility for each of them to a specific position, overseen by the Committee. Ross was president of the choir from 1996-9, but in 2000 we lost him to cancer.

Ross Hartnell Memorial Scholars

In Ross’ memory from 2002 to 2009 Vic Welsh funded an annual award for a young student of promise at the Victorian College of the Arts.

The winners were:

2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009

Melanie Adams, soprano
Myfanwy Hodgson, soprano
Melanie Adams, soprano
Melanie Adams, soprano
Emily Blanch, soprano
George Liakatos, tenor
Cameron Lukey, bass-baritone
Nicholas Jones, tenor