The Australian Girls Choir (AGC) is a by now well established part of the country’s musical landscape. In April 2010 sixty girls were chosen to take part in recording sessions for this album of diverse songs in arrangements by a number of different musicians. There was a quintet of conductors on hand into the bargain. Mark Puddy has long conducted the AGC, whilst the project’s Director of Music, Vicki King, has also been a powerful influence on the standards now reached and maintained.
The composer of
Fields of Gold is one ‘Sumner’, better known as erstwhile jazz bassist and Dowland explorer, Sting. The light, warm choral blend is delightful. The soloist here is a very stylistically aware young woman, with a fine voice.
I Hope You Dance receives a neat, springy arrangement from Puddy with strings and piano supportively to the fore. Easy, peaceful listening informs
Deep Peace – how very true to the essence of its title! – whilst there’s a mature rendition of
They Can’t Take That Away From Me and an altogether more soulful outing on
Joyful, Joyful which Beethovenians will recognise from the Ninth Symphony. Mac Huff has adeptly arranged Billy Joel’s
Lullaby – a pretty song – with its fine piano part intact.
You Raise Me Up is so associated with Westlife that it comes as a pleasing surprise to hear the AGC sing it with commensurately less bombast. Bradley Ellingboe meanwhile is behind the sensitive arrangement of
How Can I Keep from Singing? The roll call of appropriately selected songs continues with Morricone’s
Nella Fantasia. There’s a Gospel feel to the
Hallelujah arrangement and a rockier vibe to parts of the track called
Songs from a Sunburnt Country which is a medley of
My Island Home, I Still Call Australia Home, and
Waltzing Matilda.
A disc can’t convey one of the things that the group is known for, which is choreography, but it does bring across the fine tonal blend and balance of the AGC, and also their generous warmth.
Jonathan Woolf
Australian Girls Choir/conductors; Vicki King, Mark Puddy, Kate
Carey, Kylie Lee-Archer, Jane Hennessy 
