Young Voices of Melbourne (YVM) is a choir of young people aged 12 – 18 years from Melbourne, Australia. Founded by its Director Mark O’Leary in 1990, it is now regarded as one of Australia’s finest young choirs. The touring choir attend different schools around Melbourne and meet together once a week to rehearse. Most singers have been members of the choir’s training choirs’ where they develop skills in vocal technique, aural training, music reading (Kodály based) and choral performance.
Since its first rehearsals, the choir has maintained a busy schedule of activities with concerts in and around Melbourne and tours to most corners of Australia. Memorable moments have included a grand performance of Mahler’s 8th Symphony with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, performances at the Port Fairy and National Folk Festivals with American composer and hammer dulcimer master Malcolm Dalglish; an outdoor concert at the foot of Uluru in the Australian outback; singing with the Ntaria Ladies Choir near Alice Springs, a tour down

the coast of Northern Queensland along the Great Barrier Reef; swimming in the water holes of Australia’s top end; performing for the Opening Ceremony and Cultural Festival of the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and singing around the bonfire in Salamanca Place at Hobart’s Festival of Voices. In 1996 YVM undertook its first international tour to Europe, with concerts in Germany, England and Hungary and in 1998 was invited to perform at the International Society for Music Education Conference in Pretoria, South Africa. In 2001 the choir visited the USA and Canada and participated in Festival 500 in Newfoundland, and toured the UK and Canary Islands in 2004 where it performed at the opening ceremony of the World Conference of the International Society for Music Education in the Auditorio de Tenerife. Over the past six years YYM toured the Asia-Pacific region, taking its music to Singapore and Thailand in 2007 and Samoa in 2011. Europe again in 2010 as part of the choir’s 20th Anniversary celebrations and the USA this year. Visit YVM’s web site at www.yvm.com.au