WHEN the sun rises over Anzac Cove on Turkey’s Gallipoli Peninsula this Wednesday – Anzac Day – Brisbane’s Daniel Wharton will be there to lift his voice in remembrance to all those who lost their lives on April 25 in 1915.
Daniel, a past student of St Joseph’s College, Gregory Terrace, will be joined by 31 other Brisbane Catholic school students – past and present – aged from 10-20 years who were commissioned by the Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA) to take part in the Anzac Day services in Gallipoli.
A combined choir from All Hallows’ School and St Joseph’s, Gregory Terrace, will have the honour at the Gallipoli event.
The schools will have a choir singing at Anzac services there each year until the centenary anniversary in 2015 of the Anzacs’ First World War Gallipoli campaign.
Daniel said it was an honour to be asked to take part.
“I think giving students like us a chance to take part in such a ceremony is an honour but it’s deeper than that,” he said.
“Our school (St Joseph’s, Gregory Terrace) has a really big significance with Gallipoli with the Old Boys who were there and I think when we sing at Gallipoli we will be doing them proud.”
Daniel said Terrace had opened a museum with information and displays relating to the Old Boys involved in the Gallipoli campaign and he had been privileged to visit it.
Daniel, who also travelled overseas with the Terrace Choir last year, said it would probably be his only chance to take part at Gallipoli.
“I really want to say thank you for the opportunity, thanks to the school for asking me and thanks to (the) DVA for allowing us to go over there and be part of this ceremony. I probably won’t go again, because of my age.”
Year 12 All Hallows’ student Hannah Fuller also considers it a privilege to take part in the pilgrimage.
“Gallipoli, to me, is a place of spiritual importance in Australian history,” she said.
Hannah said the trip had particular significance for her entire family.
“My brother Jacob is also in the choir and I know we will both remember our great uncle Charles Baxter who was part of the (Gallipoli) campaign,” she said.
The combined Anzac choir was selected following a competitive expression-of-interest process conducted by the DVA.
Terrace’s dean of culture Neil Wharton said the DVA wanted a combined choir that reflected the age group of the men who landed on the beach at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915.
“There are 18 boys and 14 girls and, of those, five of the boys and three of the girls are past students aged up to about 20 years old,” he said.
“Terrace has a long history with Gallipoli, beginning with our Old Boys who were at Anzac Cove in 1915 including two buried over there.
“Many of the students in the choir, both from All Hallows’ and Terrace, also have links with grandparents, great-grandparents or extended family who were in World War I, and we will be spending some time around the battlefield.”
Mr Wharton said students from both choirs had past international experience.
Established in 2008, the St Joseph’s Chapel Choir sang at the Vatican in 2011 and All Hallows’ Sr Mary Celine Chorale travelled to Hong Kong in 2009 to participate in a collaborative music project with the Chinese International School there.
Mr Wharton said that, since the announcement of the choir’s selection in October last year, students had rehearsed weekly.
“They will be singing three pieces at the commemorative site, performing at the Dawn Service then at Lone Pine and singing during the reflective program at Lone Pine,” he said.
The choir was officially commissioned at the Gregory Terrace Chapel on last Sunday (April 15) before performing for family and friends.
Both college principals, along with the choir’s individual conductors, will be among those accompanying the students who left Australia on Wednesday (April 18) bound for Istanbul on their way to the Gallipoli Peninsula.
ABC television will broadcast the Gallipoli Dawn Service on ABC 24 and ABC 1 at 12.30pm on Anzac Day and the Lone Pine service at 5pm.
