Sydney
2 June 2002

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Inspirations: Sweet music in a Saturday desert

Inspirations: Sweet music in a Saturday desert

Sr Eleanor and past choir member, Louisa Cataldo

By Marilyn Kerjean

The range of entertainment and socialising options available to kids on a Saturday afternoon in the Liverpool area today are more akin to a feast than to the famine of options available to their counterparts of the early 70s.

“There was a theatre, but it closed down,” says Sr Eleanor Macris, “and there was just a skating rink.

“So I started the choir,” the Sister of Charity says.

Her choir, the Caritas Singers, quickly became the model of many that came after, both here and abroad.

Sr Eleanor has coached, cajoled and counselled hundreds of choir members over the past three decades.

They have performed at places and venues as diverse as Disneyland, the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Town Hall, parish halls, churches, clubs, hospitals, schools and nursing homes.

They still have more than half the year to go, but 2002’s highlight might already have passed; that was a special 30th anniversary concert at All Saints parish hall in Liverpool.

The performance was attended by former members of the choir, men and women who, as children, sang under Sr Eleanor’s direction and now, in many cases - Sr Eleanor was delighted to note - have children of their own.

Some of her former choristers are now musicians, singers or music teachers.

“They’re all very precious, very special,” Sr Eleanor says proudly.

Sr Eleanor plucked the choir members from schools not only in Liverpool but also from Auburn, Darlinghurst and Northbridge.

There were six children originally, but that number soon grew to more than 50.

Today there are 15 members aged up to 21.

At the reunion and concert they met to honour a lady who had given them more than just the gift of music; selfconfidence, social graces, coaching in speech, drama and singing, plus travelling experience - they were all part of the package she delivered.

The choir made its first overseas tour to New Zealand in 1977.

It has since travelled to Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, the US, Japan and Thailand.

Mrs Judith Paglia, whose daughter Catherine has been in the choir for eight years, says Sr Eleanor has a gift for “bringing people out of themselves”.

“She helps those young people who have problems communicating; helps to give them more confidence,” she says.

People who know Sr Eleanor say that she can get cranky and that only the foolhardy would try to tangle with her; but, for all that, she has a heart of gold.

Louisa Cataldo, a primary school and music teacher who has been a student of Sr Eleanor for 13 years, says the nun has lived her vocation through the gift of music.

“She has devoted herself to God … through using (music) to touch people’s lives in one way or another; singing about him, and allowing hundreds of young people to experience the joy of giving service to others in the community,” she says.

“In so many ways, my own singing and teaching are a reflection of what she has taught me.

“She’s just remarkable.”

Sr Eleanor expects commitment from everyone around her … and she gets it.

There is her dedicated pianist, Eileen Hannon, who works at every rehearsal, every performance and every private singing lesson.

Before her was Mrs Hurt, who began as the choir’s first pianist in her 70s, and turns 100 this year.

Sr Eleanor grew up in Park St, central Sydney, and attended St Mary’s Cathedral Girls’ School.

In 1941 she won a scholarship to the Garcia School of Music at Potts Point, but then decided to become a Sister of Charity.

“The school dropped me like a hot cake when I entered the convent,” she says.

As a religious she was a Sydney-based teacher, then a principal, before she began to specialise in teaching music, choral and drama in schools in 1970.

She also taught teachers’ in-service courses for the NSW Department of Education.

Awarded a Commonwealth scholarship for overseas study in 1975, Sr Eleanor studied in New York, London and Budapest and in the Sydney and Melbourne conservatoriums.

She was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in 1982 for services to the community and a special state award in 1980 for work in the development of children through music and singing.

In 1991-1992 she travelled to Thailand, under Rotary auspices, to conduct special workshops in music and singing and help set up a music school there.

Now in her 80s, she still returns there every year to coach and to support its music teachers.

There are very few Catholics there, she says, but she will go to help anybody who needs her.