Urban Sea Shanties Community Choir

- About the Work
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- Marketing & Engagement
A joyful massed choir experience centered around the mirth and magic of Fred Smith's songs
Synopsis
Fred Smith’s Urban Sea Shanties started as a CD recorded with The Spooky Men’s Chorale. It evolved into a live stage show with Men in Suits, and most recently into a mixed, massed choir project run by Kingston City Council. The project sees a choir formed from existing local choirs who rehearse under a choir leader, with guidance from Andrew and Fred. Andrew attends a number of rehearsals through the process to finetune, and Fred joins for the last couple of rehearsals before the performance(s).
The choir learns 12-14 of Fred’s original songs, with arrangements that are reasonably challenging but great fun to sing. Sheet music and practise audio tracks are made available for all songs. The process culminate with one or more performances, with Fred and his band providing a wonderful accompaniment to the large choral sound. At its heart, this is a participatory singing project – our previous choristers haved loved the experience, and being a large choir, they usually bring a decent-sized audience, who all have a great time with Fred’s songs and story telling.
Short Review
The Urban Sea Shanties project delivered in the City of Kingston in from May – Sept 2019, was an extremely successful participatory arts project. I highly recommend Fred Smith and Andrew Price’s Urban Sea Shanties project to arts organisations seeking to foster positive community connections and to deliver a high quality participatory arts project.
Sean Kavanagh, Kingston Arts.
Technical Information
Lighting
General lighting and some spots
Audio
Mics and PA sufficient for 5 piece band. Choir may or may not need condenser mics depending on size of venue.
Staging
It’s a band and a choir, plus access to a projector and screen if possible.
Transport Notes
Own vehicles
Audience & Marketing Notes
Music lovers, choristers and their families, Fred SMith fans and anyone with a sense of humour will love this show.
Selling Points
- Comedy mixed with sublime musicality make this a great night out. Australia’s most interesting songwriter gets together with Melbourne’s finest musicians and a choir full of people you’ve probably met at the shops - what could go wrong!?
Community Engagement
- The whole project is a massive community engagement activity!
Details
Audience
All ages
Venue Format
All, though we'll need a fair bit of floor space depending on the size of the choir
Duration
120 Minutes
Available Until
Budget & Fees
What are these? Find out more.Remount: $3000
Weekly Sell Off: $0
Per Performance: $4000