Bondi Sings

A New Chapter

7.30pm, Tuesday 24 June 2025

Welcome to Bondi Sings’ first concert for 2025. We hope you enjoy the collection of songs we are presenting tonight.

The concert is called ‘A New Chapter’ as recently we bade farewell to our beloved musical director of 11 years, Gary Smith. We also welcomed our new director, Christina Mimmocchi. Some of these songs are well-loved favourites from Gary’s time and some are songs that Christina has brought to the group. We are also proud to present an original song by Miriam Vera Barr, who is a creative and energetic member of the sopranos.

Please enjoy the concert and stick around for supper. And remember – we always welcome new members.

MC: Fleur Bitcon

Opening Act 1: Peter Miller-Robinson

Peter Miller-Robinson is a local performer who blends folk, blues, psychedelia and ambient elements into his compositions. His songs are often heart-felt meditations or wry comments on human behaviour. He has travelled extensively through Europe, playing house concerts to festivals, and has two awards from the Australian Songwriters’ Association.

His two recently-launched new albums are available on Bandcamp: https://petermiller-robinson.bandcamp.com

Opening Act 2: Christina Mimmocchi and Jess Ciampa

The choir’s new director and resident tenor/bass tutor perform Leonard Cohen’s Who By Fire (1974). Christina and Jess created a choir for a Leonard Cohen tribute concert in the 2017 Sydney Festival, where they sang this song acoustically as two-thirds of the trio Strawberry Thieves. When they rehearsed it one night before choir, Miriam (soprano) told them the lyrics come from the Jewish Unetanneh Tokef prayer. In synagogues, the prayer is recited during the High Holy Days. The song was originally recorded by Leonard and Janis Ian.

and finally …

BONDI SINGS

SONGS

Lingmarra

Warning: The following description contains the name of an Indigenous man who has died.

Lingmarra, a beautiful song about coming together, was brought to Community Music Victoria by Balang T. E. Lewis (“T”), a Murrungun man, actor, singer and songwriter from Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, who first learned it as a traditional song from the Dalabon Corroboree, Bongiliny Bongiliny.

“T added to the traditional song in so many ways. The call to the young people Aair yawodi is his idea and this is Kriol. When the old people sing Lingmarra gumbah they are not sad. They are having fun. T added his story to the song, which is about his search for his brother, but also about travelling through his ‘church’, the country and communities of southern Arnhem land.” (Stephen Costello, Community Music Victoria)

Homeward Bound (Marta Keen, 2017. Arranged by Jay Althouse)

Composer Marta Keen explains that her composition is about “Finding your true calling in life; knowing that those who love you trust that you will return … I wrote this song for a loved one who was embarking upon a new phase of life’s journey, to express the soul’s yearning to grow and change.”

Java Jive (Ben Oakland and Milton Drake, 1940. Arranged by Kirby Shaw)

Soloists: Des Kahn, Eddie Caples, Lisa Botbol, Peter Daly

This is a song famously recorded by The Ink Spots in 1940. We sing an arrangement that Kirby Shaw wrote for the renowned US vocal quartet The Manhattan Transfer. “Java Jive” is reportedly the hit one gets after drinking a good coffee. The song has overtones of enjoying something stronger, but there’s no one in the choir old enough who can vouch for this theory! The song is full of delicious chromatic vocal lines, solos, spoken interjections and vocal effects.

America (Paul Simon, 1968. Arranged by Gary Smith)

Recorded in 1968 by Simon and Garfunkel, Paul Simon’s song is about young people hitching across America. Unusual in that there are no rhymes, the song starts out as optimistic as the song’s subjects, and then turns to an emptiness and longing in a literal and metaphoric search for the real America.

That Lonesome Road (James Taylor, Dave Grolnick, 1981.)

“That Lonesome Road” appears on James Taylor’s 1981 album Dad Loves His Work. The song is written to be unaccompanied and Taylor and the band perform it a cappella in his live shows. It’s lovely to hear our tenors and basses carrying the melody rather than singing supporting parts.

The Whole World is Dreaming (Mark Seymour, 2020. Arranged by Rachel Hore)

This is a choir favourite and is a beautiful arrangement.

Australian songwriter Mark Seymour writes: “It was always a ritual in our family to sing our children to sleep. I’ve often wondered how the relationship between a parent and child never reaches the same degree of closeness and trust those early moments hold. And then comes death. We sang to my mother as she died. To know your life might be bookended by song is a deeply comforting idea.

“I often think of the wonder of the night time sky in country Victoria, the explosion of the southern starlight, a child’s view through an open window as it drifts off to sleep. To be sung to a tiny child and a dying parent.”

People Get Ready (Curtis Mayfield, 1965. Arrangement by Gary Smith)

Soloist: Eddie Caples

The great American songwriter Curtis Mayfield wrote this song in the early sixties and it was a single for The Impressions in 1965. This wonderful song is in a long tradition of Black American freedom songs that use train imagery, and it has been recorded by artists as diverse as Bob Marley, Rod Stewart and Human Nature.

In 2015, the song was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry due to its cultural, historic, and artistic significance. Martin Luther King Jr. named the song the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement and often used the song to get people marching or to calm and comfort them.

Hallelujah Round Time (Miriam Vera Barr, 2025. Arranged by Miriam Barr and Christina Mimmocchi)

“With childhood abandonment I sing, ‘Oh Hallelu, oh Hallelu, oh Hallelujah

Hallelujah.’

“The melody develops and I playfully dance in ‘circles’ of joy to a frenzy, singing and rejoicing filled with love for my Creator. I petition Him …

‘Let me soar like an eagle,

Sing like an angel

Sparkle like the stars above

To glorify your name.’

I developed this simple yet powerful word ‘Hallelujah’ into a performance piece for 25 dancers for the Australian Jewish Song Festival.

Now, a new exciting version for your ears to hear by my beloved fellow choristers of Bondi Sings, and conducted and co-arranged by Christina Mimmocchi and myself. Enjoy!” MVB

Let There Be Peace (Christina Mimmocchi, 2015.)

“I wrote this song in 2015 about various turbulent world events at that time (little did we know what was to come). I wrote the song down in four parts and offered it to various choir friends around the country and further afield as an easy choir song that could help us unite, through secular song, in our quest against war and injustice. It has been translated into Tetum and Portuguese and was sung in Dili Square to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the country’s democratic elections. People are welcome to use the song and to substitute the key words to suit specific occasions.” - CM

Please sing along.

Let there be peace
Let there be peaceful times
And let peace surround us all
Yes in times like these
That bring us to our knees
Let there be peace.

Let there be joy
Let there be joyful times …

Let there be calm
Let there be quiet times …

Let there be songs
Let there be rousing times …

Let there be peace …

Guantanamera (Verses: Jose Martí, 1895. Arranged by Electo Silva and Margot McLaughlin)

Soloist - Agostina Ceballos

Percussion - Jess Ciampa

Jose Marti was born in 1853 in Havana, Cuba. When he was seventeen years old he was active in the Cuban Liberation movement, which worked to gain independence from Spain. He spent most of his life in exile, including twelve years in New York City. He wrote seventy books of poetry, novels and polemics. He is one of the greatest writers in the Spanish language. At the age of forty-two he returned to Cuba. This is one of his last poems because he was killed within the year in an aborted uprising. After he died, people put it to a popular tune. He is considered to be Cuba’s national poet and this song is popular all over the world.

Cuba has a long-standing embargo by the United States which was recently ramped up to include Cuba on a list of countries aiding terrorism.

CHOIR

Musical Director - Christina Mimmocchi

Tenor and Bass Tutor - Jess Ciampa

Sopranos

Miriam Vera Barr

Deborah Braithwaite

Agustina Ceballos

Michelle Chung (absent)

Louise FitzGerald

Elizabeth Hanley

Anna Hauser

Avril Janks

Kiki Kikuchi

Maree Lipschitz

Hazel Mockbell

Virginia Parsons

Edna Ross

Susan Storry

Serene Tan

Clare Willington

Lenny Wilson

Eve Wynhausen

Altos

Nada Andrews

Fleur Bitcon

Lisa Botbol

Victoria Braithwaite

Debbie Brandon (absent)

Aimee Coyle

Susan Davitt

Donna Desiatnik

Annette Gardner

Katrina Graham

Jacquie Hilmer

Lauri Kilfoyle

Amanda Ng

Suzie Riddell

Phyll Sakinofsky

Emily Sinnott

Xandra Ulmer

Tenors

Deborah Boswell

Steve Braithwaite (absent)

Peter Daly

Anne Dickson

Ross Feller

Scott Henricks

Louise Hughes

Trish McAlary

Max Massili

Paul Simmons

Basses

Eddie Caples

Dennis Flaherty

Brian Hogan

Des Kahn

Ross MacRae

Tony Maynard (absent)

Bondi Sings Committee

Trish McAlary (President)

Louise FitzGerald (Treasurer)

Susan Davitt (Secretary)

Eddie Caples, Scott Henricks, Tony Maynard, Virginia Parsons (committee members)

Front of House

Michael Barr

Donna Desiatnik

Rob Mahood