For over 35 years, Voices from the Vacant Lot has filled spaces across Sydney and beyond with songs that cross continents and connect communities, and they show no sign of stopping.
With members having come and gone, Voices may look a little different from when they started in the 80s, but you’ll still find them decked out in their signature bohemian flair, with vibrant colours, flowing fabrics and all the joyful chaos that comes with it.
“We’ll never be a choir who wears black,” said Jessica Douglas, a founding member and last of the original lineup to hand over the reins.
Voices emerged from the world music movement that swept through Sydney and the rest of the world in the 1980s, but for Voices, this global shift wasn’t just a passing trend.
“For us, it was just an exploration of something that was new and amazing, something you had access to in a country like Australia, which is so multicultural. We really wanted to explore that on a musical level,” said Douglas.
“It’s almost introducing these songs to a new audience who hasn’t heard them because they aren’t members of that culture, and may not normally hear anything like that,” said Dinah McClelland, the group’s alto.
Their name, Voices from the Vacant Lot, was a nod to French avant-garde theatre, but for the founding members it also spoke to the idea of beginning with a blank canvas.
“We were really interested in a blank space as something you can fill with whatever you want, with whatever creative inspiration you have to fill this vacant lot,” said Douglas.
Over the decades, Voices has performed for dignitaries like Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Gough Whitlam and José Ramos-Horta, and have graced stages from the Woodford Festival to the Festival Internacional de Coros in Santiago de Cuba. Their 1998 album Dance on Your Bones earned them an ARIA nomination for Best World Music Album.
During Mandela’s 1990 visit to Australia, Voices were invited to perform for him on the Opera House steps. This invitation followed their involvement with the ANC’s cultural attaché during the anti-apartheid movement, where delegates spread awareness of their cause by teaching freedom songs to Sydney choirs.
More recently, the group has performed at fundraising events supporting the Yes Vote for The Voice and for the Better Streets initiative. They were also involved in the Building Song project, a collaborative initiative that attempts to find and express the voice of place through original music.
“We look at how sound might travel through different openings, and how it reflects and then comes off walls, and what sounds the building itself might make as an instrument,” said Cybele Shorter, current soprano of the group.
The original group and its new members remain as close as ever. Together, they continue to celebrate cultural diversity, creativity and friendship, proving that even after more than three decades, Voices from the Vacant Lot still has plenty of songs left to sing.
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