Performance & Professional Singing:
live music events, bands and groups
Singing performance and current musical groups
I am currently performing with two live performance groups that are available to book for your event or music festival:
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The Third Voice - Vocal harmony trio + guitar, loops, concertina & percussion. Originals, pre-loved songs & Afro-Cuban "pacy, experimental, funky" Amalina Wallace
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Strike & String (formerly Gyimesi Project ) - Fiddle, voice & string drum. Hard-core folk from the Carpathians
The third voice
The Third Voice is the coming together of three Sydney female vocalists and their 25+ years of experience in Australia and beyond, delivering exquisitely curated tunes, profound lyrics and razor-sharp harmonies
The Third Voice features three strong female voices, mainly unaccompanied. As individuals, Clarita Derwent, Gemma Turner, and Christina Mimmocchi are each experts and soloists in their own right, who crossed paths early in their careers in the well-known vocal group Blindman's Holiday. They share a love of a finely written song, voices in harmony and music for the body as well as the mind. In The Third Voice they create new songs and curate material they love from a wide variety of sources, re-arranging them as either a cappella numbers or adding new colours created by guitar, live-looping, concertina and percussion. They have each followed varied professional musical paths including songwriting, a cappella performance, fronting bands, directing choirs, conducting voice and song research and performing in a range of ensembles in diverse musical settings around Australia and the world.
Since its inception, the Sydney-based trio has performed at venues, events and festivals around NSW, Australia. The group has just finished recording their debut EP, with a grant by the Sydney Inner West Council, which is due for release mid-2024. The album features originals by Christina and Gemma and new and trad-inspired arrangements of Afro-Cuban songs by Clarita. Produced by Llew Kiek, the recordings also feature his considerable guitar skills, an ace rhythm section with percussion by Jess Ciampa and bass by Peter Firth with additional voices from community choirs that are directed by Christina and Gemma.
Writer Amalina Wallace described The Third Voice as "pacy, experimental, funky."
Strike & String
Strike & String is the pairing of fiddler Mark Richards and Gemma Turner (vocals & string-drum) playing the exciting, raw and hard-edged string music of the Csángó people of Transylvania and Moldavia
Originally an occasional addition to the sets of The Transylvaniacs and with dance group Kengugro, Strike & String became a spin-off of that band, making regular appearances at the Woodford Folk Festival under the name Gyimesi Project, often with dancer Gary Dawson When it became clear that people couldn't work out how to pronounce the name (Gyimesi = dyeemeshee), they changed the name to the descriptive and more easily pronounceable Strike & String. The name is reference, in particular, to the uniquely Csángó (Chahngoo) instrument, the ütögardon, a string percussion instrument that is plucked and hit on one drone note. This is the simple accompaniment to the virtuosic violin style of the region which Mark Richards, leader of Transylvaniacs, studied initially from recordings and then first-hand in Gyimes itself in Romania. The final part of the duo's sound is Gemma's vocals in Hungarian.
Be transported to Transylvania with the raw and intense folk music of Gyimes.
band archive:
Blindman's Holiday
"surely the best a cappella group in Australia and one of the best in the world"
Sydney Morning Herald 1990
"Ace Australian all-female a cappella group who dazzle with their simple intensity and sensitivity...A must."
Time Out (London) 1992
Gemma was an original member of this pioneering all-female a cappella group 1986-1998. In the days when the term World Music had just been invented, their love of ancient, contemporary and ethnically diverse music led them to an astoundingly broad repertoire ranging from haunting traditional ballads to upbeat originals in more than a dozen languages. Gemma and Linda Marr were the main writers and arrangers for the group in that time.
Gemma joined the group in 1986 when the group went professional and left in 1998 when the group had reached the height of their powers. In those 12 years, they toured extensively throughout Australia and toured Europe three times, performing in venues from the New Morning Jazz Club in Paris, WOMAD (Reading,UK) and the Melkweg in Amsterdam to the Sydney Opera House. A high point was being chosen to represent Australia as to perform for heads of state at the South Pacific Forum, in Nauru in 1993. Australian festival performances include the inaugural Womadelaide, Adelaide and Melbourne International Arts Festivals and main stages at Port Fairy, The National and Woodford Folk Festivals on numerous occasions. In that period, the group released 3 albums. The first self-titled album was also released in Europe and the track Todos Juntos off the second album Archipelago achieved high rotation on JJJ. The third album Airport Lounge featured originals for the first time with two of Gemma’s original songs appearing. In 1996 they also collaborated with Macedonian-Australian techno artist Maxim (Robert Sazdov) appearing live and on his album Subdina.
"Their sound is complex and cleverly constructed but they perform it with feeling and wit"
Rolling Stone 1998
"A breath of pure air from Australia...Four women and their enchanting voices .....sparkling with precision and clarity"
La Voix du Nord (France) 1992
