The Melbourne Women’s Choir celebrates its 32^nd year in 2025, with concerts to delight both singers and audience, and music favourites past and new celebrating wonderful compositions and arrangements for women’s choirs. What enjoyment!

Our past

It’s first performance was in a Melbourne-hosted Women Composers Conference. It has sung with the Melbourne, Sydney and Stonnington symphony orchestras (The Planets – Holst three times and A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Mendelssohn twice). The choir has appeared on the TV Football Show; in the year 2000 was one of the choirs in the Classical Spectacular with the Melbourne Symphony on Rod Laver Arena; it participated in a gospel musical in St Patrick’s Cathedral; in 2006 travelled to Adelaide for a women’s choir festival; and sang a Sister Act gig in costume at the Sofitel Hotel. It has shared concerts with several women’s choirs – the Kanazawa Choir of Japan; the Cecilian Singers of New Zealand and with Women of Note, Bendigo, in A Tale of Two Cities in both Bendigo and Melbourne. In 2019 it was included in the Music Festival of Women of Note in Bendigo. With male choirs it has sung with the Gwent Male Choir of Wales, the Adelaide Male Choir and the Melbourne Mastersingers. The choir has hosted 10 national Voices of Women festivals and has co-hosted (with the Melbourne Chamber Choir) 18 Victorian Choral@Montsalvat festivals. MWC has provided the Valour Hymn for the Victorian Police Force and has sung the music for a film and a video game. For many years it twice-annually sang in the Student Mass at St Carthage’s, Parkville; for the Kew Interfaith Service for the Kew Arts Festival; and this year for the 8^th time the Carmelite annual Carol Evening in Kew. Gigs returned in 2022 and MWC was found entertaining passengers in the Departure Lounge areas of Qantas Airways, and in 2023, carolling at Martha’s Cove on the Mornington Peninsula.

The Melbourne Women’s Choir has produced three CDs – Virtuoso Women – music of the orphanages of Venice, accompanied by orchestra; My Song in the Night – a selection of beautiful sacred and secular music accompanied by May Gavin; and And the Angels Sing including A Ceremony of Carols – Britten, Choral Hymns of the Rig Veda – Holst and A Child Comes Forth – Hamilton – all accompanied by harp. Purchase these CDs here.

The choir has toured to Europe twice:

– in 2016 singing with Trinity College Choir in Greenwich; a concert at Cambridge University; concerts in La Madeleine and in St Eustache churches in Paris; at The Salon and in the Episcopal Church in Geneva; and in La Pieta in Venice;

– in 2019 singing at a Mass and concert in St Stephen’s Cathedral and a concert in St Peter’s church in Vienna; concerts in St Martin in the Wall and in St Nicholas church in Prague; at Nymphenburg Palace in Munich; and in La Pieta in Venice.