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Our Philosophy

We like singing and we think singing together is good for us.

We don’t think there’s enough of this going on right now so SongFest Inc. exists to promote community singing and, through this, improve the community we live in by reducing isolation and disconnection.

SongFest Inc seeks to realise this purpose by:

  • raising the profile of community singing
  • encouraging and assisting people to join existing community choirs
  • engaging with communities that lack existing community choirs to create singing opportunities and, potentially, new community choirs
  • creating and supporting performance opportunities for community choirs
  • leveraging the benefits of community singing to strengthen communities for the benefit of the disadvantaged and marginalised in our society which, in turn, benefits all members of our community.

There is a significant body of evidence that community singing provides a sense of social connectedness, that it impacts positively on the physical and psychological wellbeing at individual, relational and community levels and that community singing increases a sense of belonging, has significant physical and emotional benefits, and reduces personal stress. 

There is also significant evidence that singing is the language of social cohesion that balances the individualistic effect of spoken language.

However, in our modern life there is increasingly less time spent on these cohesive pursuits, even if people recognise that this is what they lack. To this end SongFest Inc intends to enhance its impact in creating singing opportunities within the daily life of people, not just in their scarce leisure time.

 

Our People

The members of SongFest Inc share a passion for building connections within communities and a love of singing.  The membership of the association is deliberately small with the aim of minimising the business that SongFest Inc conducts with itself.  The members of the association engage with other associations or sub-committees to fulfil the purpose of the association providing inspiration, support and expertise.

 

 

Our Future

It is our intention to realise the purpose of SongFest Inc through engagement with skills and expertise in the “retired” cohort of the community, without reliance on government funding and by maximising the viability of musical direction as a sustainable career for talented young musical graduates.