STUART SPEIRS

Stuart Speirs joined the choir in 1989. Here is his story in his own words:

Mum heard me singing around the house and thought I held a tune pretty well. So she took me to an audition. I whinged at first. Thank goodness she insisted. Should have listened to Mum about how important piano lessons were, too, in hindsight...

I loved every tour. Walking into venues for the first time knowing we were going to be performing in them that night was always a little awe inspiring... even if it was the humble Benalla Town Hall. The first US tour in 1991 took in Hawaii and the West Coast. I loved the operetta we did on that tour, The Golden Vanity. Staying with billet families was incredible - uber-rich families with five cars in the garage, military families with not much in the garage. The 1993 US tour gave me the two best friends I have today in Andrew Furze and Andrew Blain… it was a bonding moment for life.

There's a certain atmosphere back stage in venues like the Arts Centre which is really hard to articulate. The energy and sense of anticipation is always there. I loved performing at the Concert Hall in town. Being backstage before the concerts playing "who could make the other laugh first" competitions with Jono Dusting. The man had a plastic face. I couldn't compete with that. I also remember a Christmas Concert at Hamer Hall where Andrew Blain busted out one of the better solos I've ever heard… a couple of floors up overlooking the audience.

Another particularly memorable performance was at the Zoo during Christmas time. It was a stinking hot day and we just kept falling over one by one because of the heat. It was like a war zone. We started with 20+ and I reckon we finished with around 12-15. The second sopranos were non-existent by the end of that day. They were always a bit soft around the edges....

Being appointed Head Chorister meant a great deal to me and I remember feeling really humbled. I think it came about as a result of the successful 1993 tour. The Leaders on that tour, of which I was one, worked really hard on the quality of our rehearsals and performances. We would gather the Choir before a performance and talk through why it was important to perform as well as we could and what we needed to focus on throughout the performance. Those little pre-performance chats … were the Choir equivalent of a footy change room before a grand final!

[The Choir] has had a lasting influence on me. My two best friends today come from the Choir. The Choir made me realise you don't just arrive at being good. Failed tries at tests, bad notes, harsh reviews by peers and superiors, Mum driving in peak hour traffic every single Friday for a couple years up Burke Rd... there's some serious effort and reliance on the support of others required to become genuinely good at something.