Running With Cheese

After the desert I spent a few days in Sydney, working on the Living Hamsters/ Club Cheese recordings with Peter Dasent (very encouraging), and also caught up with the Heavenly Lights and some key past and present COTGOS members. Then a brief weekend in Canberra, where I had an excellent group of singers attend a weekend workshop (thanks Liz), then a couple of days off in Hobart.
    I stayed in my hotel room in Hobart working on music most of the time, but got to a few of the Festival of Voices events. I liked Myron Butler's style in teaching contemporary gospel, enjoyed the TSO Chorus singing Spanish songs in an indoor tennis court, and enjoyed the opening concert in the lovely St Davids: Gondwana Voices singing Ross Edwards, Ginger and Tonic's take on pop music. I also got to hang with chums from last year's gospel tour and other friends in Hobart who were attending the festival.
    My FOV workshops were wonderful, a huge and enthusiastic crowd in the beautiful Hobart Town Hall, and the one night I went to the Festival Club, it was rocking: Kavisha Mazzella, Stephen Taberner and Irene from Melbourne Massed Gospel Choir were excellent.  Had to go to Launceston to do a weekend (very nice, by the way, thanks Lee and Singcognito), so I missed the final events, but from what I did see, it was obvious the Festival was bigger and better than ever. Plans are afoot to make FOV 2011 into a massive gospel event, so if that's what rotates your codpiece, keep tuned to the FOV site.