The Boîte Choir Experience

The Boîte Choir

I really enjoyed being in the choir. It was so much fun meeting new people and talking to everyone. I had such a good time, and it felt like I was performing to the whole world. It was a really great experience that I will remember.

My friends Sihaam, Nonny, Amira encouraged me a lot, which made me feel really good and confident. Me and my choir friends had an amazing time together and made some really good memories.

We met a woman named Stella, who helped us learn the song. We also met her daughter Bonnie, who helped us practise. It was really fun learning with them, and I liked getting to meet new people and teachers.

Highlights

One of my favourite highlights was going on the tram to the city. It was so packed, and I sat next to my friend Sihaam. We had so much fun together on the tram.

When we got to the city, we had a little break before practice. Then we went inside, and it was so fancy. I was really excited to be there.

My Favourite Part

My favourite part was probably seeing the people from Ghana dancing. It was so funny and really cool to watch.

There was also a circus guy called Yoga who was really funny. He had a stick on his head with a metal bowl balancing on it, and he also had two metal bowls in his arms. I thought it was so cool and funny to watch.

Overall, being part of the Boîte Choir was such a fun experience. I got to meet new people, make friends, learn new things and have a really good time.

- By Ilhan, 5RL

I’ve been in a lot of choirs in my life, some even needed an audition. But there truly was something special about the Boite school choir. All the songs were from Ghana and we learned them week by week, day by day, in our choir practices. I personally ran district cross country with the songs stuck in my head, very catchy ear-worms. Every time we rehearsed, my friends and I would come out of the music room still singing the songs together. This project gave the opportunity to kids who wanted to participate. That is the beautiful thing about an optional choir: everyone there is there by choice and they all love music and singing.

It's hard to put into words how it felt to sing at the Melbourne Town Hall with 300 other kids!  It was a REALLY big stage. When we stood on the ground, the platform was taller than me (even though I’m not too hard to beat!🤣). We really felt our nerves when we looked out into the audience. But when you open your mouth and you sing a song about love and friendship, all together, it really changes your feelings. We had an amazing time. It was SO SO SO fun we even sang with a Ghanaian band! My mum gave up her Massive Attack tickets to see our concert and she has NO regrets!!!

Learning Ghanaian songs was a real privilege as we learned that even though English is their official language, Ghanaian citizens sometimes don’t have the opportunity to learn it. This makes daily tasks like legal forms much harder. Even though we only learnt a small amount of words we learnt the traditional stories through the songs. I feel so very lucky to have this incredible opportunity and be in the position to learn about these topics.

I would really love to thank Tanya from the bottom of my heart for giving up her lunches and being so patient because I think I can speak for everyone when I say you didn’t just teach us the words on a page, this was one of the highlights of our year! 

- Imogen 11yrs,  5RL

My favourite part of the 2026 Boite choir was the singing and watching the play even if I could only see the back of the heads. I still enjoyed seeing the audience laugh at the show, at the end of the performance it was 100% all worth it. And I hope kids next year and on can have the same experience we had.

- Natalie, 5RL

My favourite part of the Boite choir performance on Tuesday was seeing all the cool dancing and circus tricks they performed. Another thing I liked was singing with everyone and when the parents had to join in. Before the performance day we were all working so hard to get it right and practicing for ages so we hope all that hard work paid off.

- Saskia, 5RL

On Wednesday we went to the choir performance. We started off by leaving the school and going on a tram, near the end of the tram ride we saw some students ending their own choir performance. We ate some food while we waited to go to Melbourne Town Hall. After we ate all our food we started walking there, we had to wait before going in but after a bit we got in.

We looked around and got in a room, we stayed in a room for a bit and then started rehearsing. One we sang everything then got put back into the room. We ate our dinner and waited around an hour. It was time for the performance. At the start of each song someone from a school talked about it. It was a break between our singing, in some breaks we had dancing and a circus performer to do some tricks for everyone. Once we finished everything we got sent back class by class and headed home.

- Billy, 5RL

On Tuesday the 11th of August 2026, there was a Boite school Choir performance where the FNPS grade 5/6 choir performed along with 280 other students. It was a great experience and my favourite part was when the circus performer did his act. It was an awesome experience overall and I would definitely do it again.

- Orlando, 6AD