PERTH’s young singers will have the opportunity to learn from experienced mentors at the Perth Choral Institute’s first summer school course. Internationally acclaimed Australian soprano and early music specialist Sara MacLiver will front the team running the eight-day intensive singing experience in January. The summer school’s director Hugh Lydon said he hoped the initiative would…

A BID to slash the $90,000 spent each year on dinners for Bayswater councillors and staff has been dashed, with only two councillors supporting more frugal meals. Speaking ahead of Tuesday’s vote, councillor Catherine Ehrhardt told the Voice the “the meals have always felt very extravagant for me”. The three course meals, which cost $63…

TRINITY Uniting Church director of music Jangoo Chapkhana promises a mix of contemporary and traditional music and readings to provide a Christmas service with a difference. Trinity will host a Festival of Lessons and Carols on Sunday 18 December at 10am, as well as Christmas Day celebrations including an Afrikaans service at 8.30am. Mr Chapkhana…

ST JOHN’S volunteers are taking to the seas as part of a Leeuwin Foundation initiative to help people with intellectual, sensory, or physical limitations experience an ocean voyage. Spending five days learning to sail on Australia’s largest sail training ship requires teamwork and perseverance, so it’s a challenge for able-bodied budding sailors but an absolute…

PARENTS and neighbours are fighting an education department plan to gobble up a third of Inglewood primary school’s oval with six new classrooms. The parents say the $3.5 million building shouldn’t come at the cost of play space and want the plans rethought. The 400 students at Inglewood already have an oval roster because of…

LONG time local politics watchdog Tony Green has been sent a poison pen letter by someone unhappy with his scrutiny of Bayswater council. The president of the Bayswater City Residents Association recently quizzed Bayswater councillors about the council’s impending Christmas closedown, worried about casual staff who wouldn’t get paid holiday leave. The questions earned him…

THE Mary Street Piazza has seen Vincent council pick up the Great Place Award from the Planning Institute of Australia. The Beaufort Street Network had long called for a public space to encourage people to be “Beaufort Street Loiterers,” turning the strip from a thoroughfare into a destination. The piazza was created during a trial…

THE Duyfken replica is sailing further upriver than usual this December, docking at its specially built island berth at Elizabeth Quay. The Duyfken usually lurks around Fremantle’s moorings or sails up the coast to Hillarys Boat Harbour but can now dock at an island berth built bespoke last year. The Dutch-inspired replica’s in its element…

AFTER waiting six weeks for Vincent council to take action over an unkempt privately-owned block in Mt Lawley, local Liberal MP Michael Sutherland got some gardening tools and tackled the problem himself. “I’m a hands on MP,” Mr Sutherland told the Voice. “I should have sent you a picture of the rubbish I pick up…

MT LAWLEY Senior High School has received $25,000 as part of a premier’s award for excellence in aboriginal education. Principal Milton Butcher says the school uses an outreach program called Follow the Dream which identifies aspirational indigenous students and helps them work towards a university entrance. The program operates in 27 public schools throughout the…