Moorambilla Voices is not your standard choir camp.
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Each year students from North-West NSW are taught not only to sing, but to understand the region they come from.
The Moormabilla Voices residency camps choose a significant indigenous site in North-West NSW every year to inspire the music, dance and artwork created and performed at the camps.
Moorambilla Voices Artistic Director, Michelle Leonard OAM said this year, the program's 14th, the landscape studied was The Macquarie Marshes.
"The Macquarie Marshes is part of a song line that is gradually being built as the program grows," Ms Leonard said.
"Since learning about the Marshes I've discovered how important they are to the whole cultural landscape in NSW, many would regard them as the oldest cultural structure in the world."
Ms Leonard said earlier in the year she visited 3,500 students across schools in North-Western NSW to select participants in this year's residencies.
"We do singing and dancing with everyone and I pick some students that I think will thrive at the resident camp," Ms Leonard said.
"That way we end up with three ensembles, the primary boys choir, the primary girls choir and the high school students for the MAXed OUT Company."
She explained the students don't just sing in the ensembles but dance and create artworks for their performance.
"What I'm really interested is them having meaningful connections with each other and their community through creative problem solving," Ms Leonard said.
Composer in Residence for the boys choir, Andrew Howes, has worked with Moorambilla for four years.
He said it's the students that drive the artistic direction of the music.
"Really it's their region not mine and so it means a lot to me to see their perspectives on the environment and land around them and incorporate it into my work every year," Mr Howes said.
Composer in Residence for the girls choir, Josie Gibson agreed it was important for the students to be part of the creativity.
"It is important that they have an active ownership of the work they perform, it makes the memory of the experience more lasting and it gives the children something to be proud of at the end of the journey," Ms Gibson said.
The residency camps, which take place in Baradine from August 7 to 18, culminate in three concert performances at the Dubbo Regional Theatre and Convention Centre on September 27 and 28.
Ms Leonard said there were further performance opportunities throughout the year.
Last year this included an open air Christmas concert in Sydney and a performance in front of Hilary Clinton.
However, she said they could participate in more performances if funding was available.
"What we need now is philanthropic support to create a tour fund so we can say yes to the opportunities that come up," Ms Leonard said.
