Harambee has been pushing the a cappella boundaries since it was founded in 2002. Harambee, which means “in the spirit of togetherness” in Swahili, originally focused on repertoire that reflected a variety of musical styles from around the world. They’ve been successful on the eisteddfod circuit winning numerous titles, including Boroondara Eisteddfod A Cappella Choral section four times, placing at the National Eisteddfod in Canberra, as well as reaching the State Finals of the 2006 ABC Classic FM “Choir of the Year”.
It wasn’t until 2008 that Harambee really stepped onto the contemporary a cappella scene in Australia. That year they were inspired to take a new direction, focusing more on popular music, as a result of advancing to the Grand Final and placing third in Channel 7’s “Battle of the Choirs”.
Since then they have fine tuned their aca-skills through masterclasses with international aca-legends including Deke Sharon (USA), Austin Willacy (House Jacks – USA) as part of the ‘core choir’ in the Contemporary A Cappella Workshop stream at Festival of Voices, and more recently with Christopher Diaz (The Exchange, Mouth Off Podcast) during The Exchange‘s Melbourne Tour, presented by Vocal Australia.
Regular participants at Vocal Australia events, audiences can spot a Harambee member from a mile away. Dressed eccentrically in Pink and Black, they’ve impressed the crowds at our GET VOCAL Festivals and Showcases and were selected in 2012 as one of only 10 groups for our compilation album GET VOCAL: The Best of Contemporary Australian A Cappella!
In the last 3 years, Harambee have released two studio albums, ‘In Your Head’ (Pop) and ‘Haram Pum Pum Pum’ (Christmas) and were 2nd-Runners Up in AUS-ACA 2013 Community Division.
If you want to be like Harambee and make your mark on the Aussie A Cappella scene, make sure you sign your group up to become a Vocal Australia Silver Member and apply to compete in AUS-ACA 2014 National A Cappella Championship! Apply for AUS-ACA by 31 January and save $50 with our extended Early Bird discount.
Click here to find out more about Harambee.
Check out Harambee’s AUS-ACA 2013 Video Entry.
