Now in its fourth year, the Moorambilla Festival continues to provide a unique environment for encouraging and celebrating creativity through concerts and workshops.

This year a myriad of workshops were offered in areas such the blues, Armenian music and country and western through to learning how to play a ukulele, weave a basket or create a bird from corrugated iron or wire.

As always the focus of the festival was on singing, which issued the challenge ‘Come on - we dare you to sing’. And sing they did, with more than 250 children and adults involved in the various choirs that took part in the weekend.

Artistic director Michelle Leonard said the aim of the festival was to leave a legacy for this region of music-making and creativity, “... where people reignited their passion for creativity and felt empowered to celebrate their place in the world through the universal language of music - singing together in a choir in particular”.

Once again the Sydney-based Leichhardt Espresso Chorus was the choir in residence and was joined by the Moorambilla Voices and the MAXed Out choirs, both which involve students from the western areas. All three choirs, directed by Michelle Leonard, featured in concerts during the weekend along with some of Australia’s top musicians in premieres of new Australian music by Elena Kats-Chernin, Ben Van Tiernan, Dan Walker and percussion group TaikOz.

The festival also gave local choirs the opportunity to perform.

This year the Hot Flats and the Coonamble Singers directed by Katie Sinclair gave performances that earned them a standing ovation from the enthusiastic audience.

“It was an absolute thrill to perform at the Saturday lunchtime concert and gave us the chance to show how much the choir has grown over the last year. We are truly grateful for the mentoring we receive from Michelle and her choir who continue to support us as we develop,” Katie Sinclair said.