Our Story

lavoceFounder & Choir Leader Kavisha Mazzella has a passion to learn songs remembered and sung by the Italian migrants to Australia. She began collecting these songs. Sitting in women's kitchens and workplaces with a cassette tape recorder ,she then formed" Le Gioie Delle Donne " Joys Of The Women "choir in 1990 in Fremantle Western Australia to keep these songs alive and and also to learn from the women. This story was told in an acclaimed documentary" The Joys Of The Women"(1992) by Franco Di Chiera and seen nationally on the ABC and Cinemas.

In 1995 at the request of Playbox Theatre in Melbourne she formed a second choir on the condition it went for 8 weeks for the duration of the play. The Play " Emma Celebrazione! by Graham Pitts has gone on the become part of the Australian Theatre canon and the choir has continiued to sing til the present day.

"La Voce Della Luna "in Melbourne and Le Gioie Delle Donne "in Perth both continue to perform regularly.

Phil Carroll, of "Global Grooves", accompanies the choir on accordian and flute as well as Kavisha who plays guitar accordian and tambourine.

The audience responses we’ve had at Festival (such as Woodford Folk Festival; Port Fairy, the National Folk Festival in Canberra, Castlemaine, Bendigo, Daylesford, and the Sydney A Cappella Festival) have always been warm and encouraging so we carry on amazed and happy to share the songs we love so well.
Recently (2006-7) For the Darebin Music Feast,the choir sang the sound track for a 1925 silent movie by Angelo Drovetti " Dall 'Italia All' Australia" stumbled upon by jounalist Tony Di Bolfo from the archives of the Bologna Silent Film Festival. This film was really enjoyed by the people,many of them having relatives that migrated to Australia on this boat. Others wept,re-living the emotions of their own journeys to Australia whether they were italian or not.

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