by FIlmInk Staff
FREE SIDNEY MYER MUSIC BOWL CONCERT FRIDAY FEBRUARY 13
LAUNCH FIND YOUR VOICE RECORDS WITH NEW MUSIC FROM GK & JULIAN PATERSON
Warrnambool’s Find Your Voice Collective will take to Melbourne’s iconic Sidney Myer Music Bowl for a free, one-night-only performance alongside the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on Friday 13 February 2026, marking the largest group of d/Deaf and disabled artists ever to perform on this stage.
Broadcast live on ABC, the concert reaches audiences nationwide while placing accessibility, lived experience and artistic excellence front and centre on one of Australia’s most iconic stages.
Find Your Voice Collective (FYVC) unites more than 250 humans from over a dozen regional south-west Victorian communities into one collective voice, welcoming all ages, genders, abilities, ethnicities, sexual preferences, religions and backgrounds. Through art, education and advocacy, FYVC offers allyship to people with lived experience of disability, creating space not just to participate, but to lead, shape and be heard.
The performance will see a 170-member choir come together with orchestral musicians for a program of original contemporary works developed over 12 months of collaboration between FYVC and the MSO. Songs and stories celebrating the full spectrum of emotion and experience sit at the heart of the night, a body of work drawn from ten songwriters and artists who identify with disability, alongside four world-leading composers and an extraordinary collective of performers. Every element of the program reflects the depth, complexity and beauty of our shared humanity.
Founded in 2018 as a grass-roots choir on south-west Victoria’s rugged coastline, Find Your Voice Collective has grown into a multi-faceted creative organisation delivering year-round programs across music, movement, film, visual arts and career development for d/Deaf and disabled artists and arts workers. With a mission to create accessible spaces that celebrate unbounded creativity, the Collective has appeared at Port Fairy Folk Festival, AbilityFest and triple j One Night Stand, and collaborated with artists including Sarah Blasko, Mama Kin Spender and The Wiggles.
FYVC artists have an uncanny ability to tell profound stories in ways that make people stop and listen. This very special performance gives space for those voices to be heard at scale, demonstrating why diversity of experience matters, and how the deepest truths so often come to us from the most unlikely places. The concert features original contemporary works written by d/Deaf and disabled artists, arranged by composers Nat Bartsch, Georgia Scott Stefan Cassomenos and Kym Alexandra Dillon, and performed with the full force of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
The road from Warrnambool to the Sidney Myer Music Bowl is being captured for the highly anticipated feature length legacy documentary We Are The Ones, set for release in 2027. We Are The Ones is a Walking Fish Production. Principal production funding from Screen Australia, in association with VicScreen and the MIFF Premiere Fund. Financed with support by Shark Island Foundation with Find Your Voice Collective. Local distribution by Screen Inc.
Alongside this landmark performance, Find Your Voice Collective continues to expand its creative ecosystem through Find Your Voice Records, the Collective’s newly established label supporting d/Deaf, disabled and neurodiverse regional artists from development through to recording, release and promotion.
In 2026, the label will release its inaugural catalogue, including new music from triple j Unearthed Feature Artist GK, whose upcoming single ‘Jungle’ channels lived experience into powerful spoken-word hip hop, and Julian Paterson, whose debut single ‘Take It Away’ is set for release on February 13 offering a raw and urgent call to collective responsibility and change. New recordings from the Find Your Voice Choir will also form part of the label’s first releases, extending the Collective’s work well beyond the stage.
A night of songs, stories and shared experience awaits at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl – a free celebration of creativity, courage and connection, designed to be felt, shared and experienced together. A rare and unmissable moment on one of Australia’s biggest stages.
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 13 | SONDER WITH MSO – SIDNEY MYER MUSIC BOWL, MELBOURNE
EVENT INFO HERE
MARCH 6-9 | PORT FAIRY MUSIC FESTIVAL, PORT FAIRY VIC
EVENT INFO HERE
Photo by KIRSTY HILL PHOTOGRAPHY
