ABOUT LOW REZ
Established in 2008, LowRez is a Melbourne-based community choir of male voices. We are united by our love of music and of pop repertoire in particular. Though we are mostly gay men, we welcome and include anyone who is male-identifying and supports our purpose. We are proud of our cultural diversity, our diverse ages and our diverse backgrounds.
Singing together brings us joy. Older men, younger men, and trans men are all welcome. We are 50-something strong. We sing in four parts - high tenors, low tenors, baritones and basses. We won’t audition you – we’ll just make sure you are standing in the right place! We perform a major concert every year and share the love in several smaller gigs around Melbourne and regional Victoria.
Our connection with the LGBTQIA+ community runs deep in our veins. Pride in our community drives our passion, and giving back to the community we love, shapes our commitment to beautiful music.
OUR PURPOSE
To encourage music by establishing and maintaining a male voice choir and to unite men from diverse cultural backgrounds through the art of singing, and, in so doing, to enhance their musical pleasure and potential.
OUR HISTORY
Low Rez was founded in 2008 by three friends, Matt, Nick and Rob. The friends had sung in choirs in Australia and around the world but were looking for something unique. They wanted to embrace the sound of the male voice, sing pop music, and as gay men, create a space for others to come together and sing. So LowRez was born. The name? It speaks to the male voice, the lower resonance sound we produce.
The choir’s first year saw different music directors and accompanists come and go, but luckily, these roles have been filled by Ursula Paez and Geoff Urquhart since 2009. Their input to the choir has been immeasurable, and we are grateful for their commitment, love and skills.
As the choir found its feet, we started performing more widely, and membership increased. Over time the concerts began featuring themes, and we stepped up the production values to include a band, staging and the ever-controversial choreography, which always raises a smile and the occasional eyebrow.
We began to collaborate with others and take on some different challenges. Our joint concerts with Melbourne Singers of Gospel in 2012 remain some of our most successful and significantly boosted our audience. We also began performing outside Melbourne, in places such as Castlemaine, Gippsland, Bendigo, Daylesford, Werribee and Shepparton. We have joined with other choirs, including Frankston Ladies Choir, Melbourne Rainbow Band, Gippsland’s ‘the Blokes’, Bass Coast Chorale, Melbourne Gay and Lesbian Chorus, shOut and especially our ‘sister’ choir, The Decibelles (the ‘Belles to us!). We have performed regularly with the; Belles, including a beautiful opportunity to perform at the Palais Theatre with Victorian Opera in 2022 for their new work A Christmas Carol.
While remaining a pop choir at heart, we take on some challenges to ensure we continue to grow. We’ve performed in French, in the First Nations language Yolngu Matha and even filmed a Neighbours commercial! We usually comprise around 45 members each year but have performed with over 60 and ensemble groups as small as 6.
Singing is, of course, our main focus, but we also exist as a brotherhood. For many of our members, who are mostly gay men, LowRez offers an opportunity to belong to something, to be part of a team; something many of us haven’t experienced before. We enjoy each other’s company and are a social group as much as a choir. We’ve had movie nights, cabarets, pool parties, many (MANY) costume parties, camps and other events.
Being part of our local community is also vital to LowRez. We regularly perform at City of Port Philip citizenship ceremonies and have a special connection to Living Positive Victoria, performing at their AIDS Candlelight vigil every year. Our concerts have also helped raise funds for charities working in family violence, homelessness, children’s health, women’s health, animal welfare and the LGBTQIA+ community. In addition, we’ve performed for several arts groups, including the National Gallery of Victoria and the Prom Coast Festival.
The COVID years were a challenge. We tried bigger venues, masked singing, online rehearsals, virtual choirs and even rehearsed in a car park with portable piano and picnic chairs, determined to keep the choir together and hold on to something many of us hold dear. We still have members who have been with us since that first rehearsal and concert, but since we intake members throughout the year, some members have only been with us for a few weeks. We’re 15 years old this year and have many plans for the future.
