I sing in a community choir in Sydney, Oz. We are called The Bright Star Singers (after the song 'Bright Morning Stars are Rising') and sing mostly folk from all countries - we sing in Turkish, Maori, Greek, Spanish, you name it! We also have a few doo-wops in our repertoire; if you grew up in the 50s-60s as some of us did that was our music.

Several of our songs are Aussie folk songs too, settings of poems by Henry Lawson - Past Carin', Andy's Gone with Cattle; more modern Aussie songs - Graham Seal's The Country Knows the Rest (about the time police fired on striking mine workers in 1929, killing one man); a few gospel/spiritual songs, and some older songs like Stephen Foster's Hard Times.

Joy, I wish you luck in your venture, it would be wonderful to have a community choir! Could you start by asking each person to bring along one suitable song for the group to try?

Cheers
JennieG