Welcome to the Arcadians Lamplighters Male Choir.
The Arcadians Lamplighters Male Choir grew out of the well known Arcadians Theatre group in 1999 to give older retired male members a forum to continue to perform. Membership now comes from all walks of life; all are at least semi-retired as rehearsals are held on Monday mornings. The Arcadians Miners Lamp Theatre is their valued home and also provides for the valuable interaction with all the other sections of the Arcadians Theatre Group, that can boast of providing high class singing and performing experience for 6 to 90 year old members.
The Lamplighters continue to maintain around 60 active members who all thoroughly enjoy the variety of the songs leader Doreen Bryars selects and the range of engagements they participate in. They work hard but have special characteristics of strong camaraderie and humorous interludes at Monday morning rehearsals especially at the mid session tea break. The Choir has a special approach to entertaining all its varied audiences by making them feel important and directly relating to them.
The Arcadians Lamplighters Male Choir were inaugural members of the Male Choirs Association of Australia and have very successfully performed with 12-15 Australia wide Male Choirs every 2nd or 3rd year. Last year the Festival of Male Choirs event was extra special as it was held in Wollongong at the Entertainment Centre and voted best yet.
The new Miner’s Lamp was kindly donated to the Lamplighters Male Choir by the then 99 year old Welshman Albert Morgan, a long time friend of one of the choir members and a lifelong lover of male choral singing. He was happy to know that this shiny brass lamp will be displayed at every Lamplighters’ concert in the future as the symbol of the choir and The Arcadians Theatre Group’s home the Miner’s Lamp Theatre. Sadly, Albert passed away at the age of 106 on July 6th 2015. He will be sadly missed particularly by ‘The Originals’.
The wives and partners of the choir members have formed themselves into a very important support group and recently named themselves the Lampettes.
This very industrious and social group meets monthly for morning coffee discussions and strongly assist and promote the Lamplighters in many ways. Whenever the choir has any concerts with other choirs they are there to provide great refreshments for all the performers. Many of these ladies travel to Lamplighter concerts and are always helping in the promotion of the Lamplighters’ larger concerts in all sorts of supportive ways. The Lampettes are a great asset.