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The Velvetones present: Christmas Cheer

Season’s greetings!
 
We hope this finds you all well and enjoying the beginning of the festive season.
 
We are super excited to be singing our (Christmas themed) socks off and helping out a great cause this Sunday afternoon! On the 9th of December we are throwing a fundraising concert in Pakenham for Need for Feed, an organisation delivering emergency fodder to farmers in need. This wonderful group was recommended to us by Claire’s uncles, who are both farmers and often donate hay themselves. 
 
A delicious afternoon tea will also be provided! Please join us in helping raise funds for this great organisation and spreading some Christmas cheer far and wide with some carols, our usual collection of fun n’ fab songs, a cuppa and a yummy bite to eat.

To celebrate the beginning of the festive season (and because we love Christmas carols and songs, even when it’s not Christmas), here’s our latest jazzy Christmas song release.

Wishing you all a wonderful season and we look forward to see you soon!

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Big News!

So much visible plaque – clearly we forgot to brush our teeth. 
You are looking at the AUSACA National Champions! For those of you not following us on Facebook  (which we thoroughly recommend), we competed at the Australian A Cappella Awards (AUSACA) finals on the 8th of September against five other fantastic a cappella bands, and were awarded:Band ChampionsAudience FavouriteBest Jazz SongBest Comedy SongAnd our fearless musical director and soprano extraordinaire, Claire Patti, won Best Soloist
Claire has been absolutely bending over backwards for The Velvetones.
The winner of the Ensemble Division, the QUT Aca-Demics and The Velvetones then sang their arrangements of Advance Australia Fair  to compete to be named Overall National Champions. Not only did Claire and friend-of-the-Velvetones Matt Booth win Best Arrangement for our Australian birdsong inspired Anthem, but we also won the AUSACA Overall National Championship! 

We worked super hard in the lead up to the competition, and we are honoured and extremely chuffed to have received these awards. We’d like to extend a huge THANK YOU to the a cappella community, the judges, and to you, our fabulous fans!

To thank you for your support and celebrate our triumphs, we decided to do what we love best – put on a show!
 Join us for a Spring SingOn October 28th we will be putting on our very own boutique Melbourne concert, “Twilight Jazz with The Velvetones” at the Kinross Arts Centre in Toorak.

This will be an intimate acoustic concert followed by wine, cheese, and chats. We are hoping for a balmy spring evening with the scent of blossoms in the air to accompany the warmth and sweetness of our performance🌼🌼🌼

With less than 50 seats available we suspect not everyone who wants to come will be able to, so please book quickly! We would love to see you there!
After that? Well, we are working on some Christmas music now, which has been playing havoc with our internal clock, but starting early means it will be pristine and polished by November! So get in contact if you would like a Christmas event with a touch of Velvetones flair, and keep an ear out for a few demo recordings in the coming months.  

Exciting times ahead!
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WIN A DOUBLE PASS TO SEE AUSTRALIAN ACAPPELLA AWARD FINALISTS PERFORM LIVE!

During our Velvetones Veekend aVay we decided to create a sneaky video submission to the Australian A Cappella Awards. The National Finals live performances are held on the 7th and 8th September in Melbourne. We reckon we are in with a shot to not only get through to finals, but maybe even win! What do you think?
Watch our video
We have ‘Faith’ you will love us! 
If you like what we are doing, we really hope that you will:Vote for us as your Fan Favourite! It means a lot to us to know we are lovedShare it with your friends! The Velvetones are very shiney and new, and we need your help to make sure people find out about usBuy tickets to AUSACA (unless you win a double pass by voting for us!) 
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Salutations, Hello, and Welcome! 

Good evening, ladies and gentleplums.

What have we been doing?

The Velvetones has had a busy first half of our first year! We have recorded a demo, had some snaps taken by Melbourne Ceili Camera, performed with Ivory vocal ensemble at the Adelaide Fringe Festival, and made our Melbourne debut at the Kinross Cabaret Fundraiser. Not to mention hours of rehearsal building repertoire, eating cheese, and doing daft dance moves.

We owe a big thanks to the Kinross community for hosting and coming along to the Fundraiser, which has raised $3,500 to continue supporting and showcasing a range of excellent art and artists at the Kinross Arts Centre. We were honoured to be a part of this event, and loved every moment of it!

What are we doing now?

At a time which I may not divulge The Velvetones will make our way to a location which cannot be named, where we will undergo a secret ritual. This ancient, mysterious undertaking will renew our rich and unusual vocal power. I’m sad to say you are not invited to that, but you can catch photos on social media!

We would love you to come along to the Melbourne International Singers Festival, a fantastic event featuring many gorgeous choirs from around Australia. As a part of the MISF we are performing in the Showcase Concert at Deakin Edge, Melbourne on the 10th June! If you know anyone who fancies a bit of cheeky a cappella jazz (or you just can’t get enough of us, which is perfectly understandable) make sure you get tickets.

We are also extremely excited to be performing at the Festival of Voices in Tasmania on the 6th and 7th of July at the Rosny Barn, as well as appearing at the Big Sing Bonfire on the 8th July with none other than one of our heroes, the proclaimed “Godfather of a cappella”, Deke Sharon (The musical genius behind the Pitch Perfect Movies!). Can we sing while hyperventilating with excitement? Come along to find out!

What can we do for you?

Smattered before, in between and after our festival appearances are a range of private appearances for various bashes, birthdays, and balls. We would love you to get in touch if you would like us to perform at your event to add a touch of Velvetones class, sass, and jazz.

We cannot wait to perform for you again!

Thank you for supporting us

Leonie, Steph, Stephanie and Claire xx

Photo of the Velvetones

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Performing at the Adelaide Fringe!

A long weekend does a soul some good. It also gives us a chance to polish and run our shiny new music for Volare coming up THIS WEEKEND at the Adelaide Fringe Festival!!

On the Labour Day Monday we all got together for a whopper five hour workshop to make sure we can put on a great show for y’all. We received some very positive feedback from Steph Mac’s adorable three-year-old daughter, and I truly hope some of our Adelaide audience will squeal and dance in their princess dresses as well. It’s a very joyful way to have your music received!

Adding to our excitement (as if we aren’t already stoked enough), a former member of one of the groups that inspired us to start The Velvetones is coming to a performance in Adelaide. So… y’know. No pressure or anything. 😘

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Our inaugural performance!

On Tuesday night (Feb 27, 2018) we had our inaugural performance with our Core Four! We are very happy to welcome Stephanie McCorkelle, who has recently been able to join us from Tassie.

North Side Swing’s community night was quite literally thumping – down at the bar the roof was pounding with the dancing on the Stone Hotel’s second floor. I can’t tell you how envious I was of the fantastic moves that were on display.

As a taster for future gigs, we performed ‘Keep my Supper Warm ’til I Get Back’ by Andrew Piper, and ‘Faith’ by Stevie Wonder, which we have recorded as a demo. The applause and appreciation was stellar, and possibly even uncomfortably long considering our nervous butterflies – although I would love to get comfortable with that kind of reception!

Next on the schedule is Volare at the Adelaide Fringe Festival, where we will do two combined performances with a local Adelaide group, Ivory. We’re going to perform quite a bit more than two songs and some new repertoire, and we would absolutely love to see you there.