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This is Black Chook Chutney or "the Black Chooks"
We started in 2008 as a music project for the Zig Zag Festival in Kalamunda at the end
of October. Jenny Hoffman suggested lots of people learned
to play a musical instrument when they were younger but hadn't played for a while, and
all they needed to get going again was the right encouragement.
And as it turned out she was absolutely right.
There were six of us on the first night and eight for the second week, and by the third
week there was a recording being made. And pretty soon that was the pattern established:
We rehearse in a little community hall in Kalamunda. It's an old house shared by the
Festival volunteers and the Stained Glass makers. Jenny & David organise what we'll
play. We all discuss arrangements, and of course, we experiment.
We are a mixture of melody and rhythmic players. It could be the melody will be led by flute
or accordion, or mandolin, or fiddle or concertina. Then there's guitars, cello, bass, tenor recorder
and our ukulele player has built his own Ukelele Banjo.
We've performed at the Zig Zag Festival in Kalamunda but the chooks have also been free
ranging: -- in the last year we've played the Hills Folk Club, the Kalamunda Farmers'
Markets, at Lesmurdie Primary School, the Kalamunda Agricultural Show, and on the Kalamunda
Shire's Walk the Zig Zag.
After five years, meeting every Wednesday we've held two hundred and twelve sessions;
the database of tunes we've played has reached nearly two thousand lines.
And over that time we have recorded and shared over 185 practise CDs.
Much of what we play you would call TRAD Folk.
April this year, our highlight was performing at the Fairbridge FolkWorld Festival where
we played as an ensemble of 18 players to a full house.