Introducing the newest face at Gondwana Choirs, ArtsReady trainee Majeda Beatty. ArtsReady is a national, not-for-profit Employment and Education company that delivers support, training and education through traineeships in the arts and creative industries.
My mum is from Cairns and my dad is from New York, making me Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and African American. I was born and raised in Sydney. We moved to America for a couple years and then moved to Cairns. Both my parents are dancers so I always was around music, and Indigenous Australian cultural songs and dances were always around growing up and were a big part of my life.
I joined Gondwana choirs when I was about ten years old and auditioned for Lyn along with my sister. I was fortunate enough to have lots of incredible opportunities through gondwana choirs – appearing in the famous Qantas commercial, performing on the Oprah show & performing at the World Expo in Shanghai.
With the help of Lyn I learnt amazing things, not only about singing but how to be a leader as well! She taught us to aim high and always held us to high standards, which made us better performers/singers and put belief in us as choristers.
Since Gondwana I have appeared on X Factor 2014 with my sister, where we were known as “MajikHoney”, (we reached Top 24) and I starred in an Indigenous teen drama called “Ready For This”, which aired in 2015 on ABC3.
Side note: “Ready For This” recently won a Logie Award for MOST OUTSTANDING CHILDREN’S PROGRAM” – one of my proudest achievements.
Now I am a part of ArtsReady, an amazing program that has me working with the Gondwana choirs, which is crazy because I feel like I was just a young chorister learning from Lyn! It’s cool seeing the other side of how the choirs work and all the hard work put in by everyone who is involved behind the scenes.
I’m very excited to be working with Gondwana choirs and hope for a great learning experience and lots of fun during my year here!
