Find Your Voice Collective, Photograph supplied
A few months ago, while hosting a show on Triple R FM, I asked listeners to text in some of their favourite words.
There were several excellent submissions, including sibylline (prophetic; mysterious), mephistophelean (wicked; fiendish), proselytising (advocating or promoting a belief), and mondegreen (a misheard lyric resulting in a new word or phrase). But my favourite of the bunch was sonder, which refers to the “realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.”
Sonder is a fitting title for the collaboration between the Find Your Voice Collective (FYVC) and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO), which will bring approximately 250 people to the stage of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. In its own words, the Warrnambool-based FYVC welcomes people of “all ages, genders, abilities, ethnicities, sexual preferences, religions and backgrounds” and creates space for people living with disability to “lead, shape and be heard.”
The collective’s performance with the MSO is its “most ambitious” project to date. The free concert, which is happening at 7.30pm on Friday 13 February, is the result of a 12-month collaboration. The 90-minute performance will centre on a suite of songs written by ten songwriters and artists who identify with a disability. These songs will be performed by a 150-member choir and 90 orchestral musicians.
The concert will be streamed live on the MSO YouTube channel and on ABC Classic. More details here.
MSO x Find Your Voice Collective | SONDER
Friday 13 February – Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne/Naarm VIC (Free entry)
MSO x Find Your Voice Collective: SONDER
