More photos from Furnival Park

from w
Here are some more of Peceli's pictures taken at Furnival Park where the Methodist choirs and singers performed. He went there everyday and met many friends, including Rita from Darwin. I went yesterday morning and enjoyed watching the soloists, duets, and some of the choirs. Today Peceli has gone to Centenary Church downtown for the ordination service. The minister from Mali Island is one of the ordinands. Then he and some of our family here will join in a dinner party at Tacirua. The name Furnival Park reminds me of my teaching colleague and friend of many years ago, Phyllis Furnival, who was at one time principal of Dudley High School, a woman who had a passion to help young women to achieve scholastic excellence and she died tragically. I wrote a story about that time and my story was published in Tales of the Blackboard.

Thank you for the music

from w
We have just returned from Furnival Park where the Methodist Choir competition is still in progress. We left early because we are going to a birthday party. What a rich variety of voices we heard this morning, soloists, duets, and choirs. The winners will not be announced until perhaps tonight but I have already picked my favourites - a 12 year old girl wearing a silver dress, confident, engaging with the audience, singing like an angel, and the Hart Fellowship Choir which reminded me of the Australian Choir of Hard Knocks. (Hart refers to Housing Assistance and Relief Trust which is assistance to the very poorest of people in Fiji. The Choir of Hard Knocks was started in Australia by a Geelong singer who gathered men and women from the streets of Melbourne - the fringe dwellers, to form a choir that eventually performed concerts and made CDs. Their song 'Alleluia' has made Leonard Cohen's song well known in Australia.) Many of the Fiji singers were people with disabilities or perhaps were very poor. And the Gau choir, I hesitate to say of our tauvu , but they were really good. One photo is of the Mali Island choir because they are in the Labasa area, Macuata - that is, babasiga. We were privileged to sit right at the front of the stage in comfortable seats and a cooling breeze and we also had the very best view of the performers. I was reminded of the Adelaide Conference we attended and Esther King (Litia Daveta) and her ten points in judging a choir competition. I wrote about it on this blog on July 14th. Of course I don't really like to pitch one singer/singers against one another as they all have some kind of excellence or provide a moving experience connecting with the listener.