Canberra
Children’s
Choir
Sing, play, discover.
A non-auditioned choir for ages 5–9, designed to spark a love of music through games, movement, and joyful singing.
No audition is required.
When: Thursdays 4:30 - 5:45 PM
Where: Ainslie Arts Centre, Room 14
Conductor: Lucus Allerton
Fees: $260 per term + membership fee
Choir Essentials Pack: $33
Includes a 2026 MfC T-shirt, fidget spinner and MfC pencil
The Canberra Children’s Choir is a non-auditioned ensemble designed for children aged 5–9 who are taking their first steps into music. Led by experienced educator Lucus Allerton, sessions are full of playful music games, movement, and singing activities that help young musicians explore their voices, develop listening skills, and build confidence.
This choir is the perfect introduction to group singing and provides a strong foundation for children to progress into our older youth ensembles as they grow and develop.
Whether your child is curious about singing or ready to dive into a world of music, the Canberra Children’s Choir is the perfect place to begin.
FAQs
Can my child join the Children’s Choir if they can't 'sing' at all?
1
Yes. It's completely fine if your child is still discovering their singing voice.
No one expects instant perfect singing from 5 to 9 year olds in the Canberra Children's Choir.
The focus of this non-auditioned choir is educational, away from the pressure of performance (although we might still perform on occasion--Particularly for the parents!).
Beautiful singing is always encouraged, and even those with developing voices can still learn rhythms, develop musical hearing with us (and identify musical elements by ear), and join their fellow choristers for the games and dances.
What if my child already receives instrumental lessons? Is it worth joining the Children’s Choir too?
2
Learning an instrument is a great activity. Depending on the approach taken, it doesn't always build up the inner musical ear the way the Kodály approach aims to do through singing and playing.
This approach explicitly builds the skills needed to look at sheet music, hear the notes in your head, and sing them out loud.
We even train the children to read and sing music they've never seen before in their lives.
Our non-auditioned Children's Choir offers an opportunity to focus on musical hearing and singing, to further enhance and round-off a child's musical education.
Plus, singing is free. It's an instrument always available to the child throughout their life.
Joining a choir doesn't require expensive instruments the way a band might.
What if my child doesn't want to join in the choir games and group activities in the Canberra Children’s Choir rehearsal?
3
That's perfectly fine.
For situations like this, it's standard practice to allow children to sit out these activities until they feel comfortable enough to join in.
The only requirement is that they keep singing with everyone else, even when sitting out--It's important to keep practising those musical skills!
What if my child ages out of the Canberra Children's Choir?
4
MfC is pleased to announce that with our recent merger, we can offer the community of the Woden Valley Youth Choir (WVYC), a group of good standing since first formed in 1969. You might know that the WVYC were specifically hired to sing for King Charles himself at his Australian reception in Parliament House in 2024.
The Woden Valley Youth Choir is performance-focused, for youths aged up to 21 years or so.
Any child that ages (or progresses) out of the Canberra Children’s Choir is invited to step up to the next levels offered by the WVYC. Please contact us for more details.
Who the heck is this Lucus fellow, who now runs the Canberra Children’s Choir?
5
Lucus Allerton is an experienced choir conductor and pianist, having run Centauri Voices of the Woden Valley Youth Choir since 2018, and worked with perhaps dozens of choirs over the years since graduating from the ANU School of Music in 2013.
He’s formally trained in the Kodály method of musicianship and pedagogy for classrooms (over 420 hours worth), and has an Australian Kodály Certificate for teaching at a primary school level –– Something which itself requires 180 hours of coursework, training, and practical application.
(Fun fact: CCC's founder, Judy Clingan, studied music education at the Kodály Institute in Hungary.)
He’ll be bringing his years of experience and education to choristers in the Canberra Children’s Choir.
Lucus recently made a spreadsheet of the choir games/activities he’s collected. It’s currently at 350, and still counting.
This means Children’s Choir choristers will be engaged in plenty of singing, moving, listening, learning, playing, dancing, and hopefully laugh together while musically socialising with fellow choristers and friends.