Singing for Life
by Erika Gelinard
Monday, November 26, City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney. Tickets: $49.50, $62.50, $110; ph: 02 8256 2222 or www.cityrecitalhall.com
For the third year running, musical theatre artist Shaun Rennie is inviting industry colleagues and other singers, dancers and musicians to perform in the Light the Night, a fundraising concert for the Arrow bone marrow transplant foundation.
The concert for research into leukaemia and other diseases treatable by bone marrow transplant will be at the City Recital Hall in Sydney on Monday, November 26 at 7.30 pm.
"This year, we hope to raise $50,000 and to get 1,000 people at the concert", says Rennie, whose younger brother Matthew has been fighting leukaemia for three years, and is now undergoing a third bone marrow transplant.
In a star-studded line-up of Light the Night this year are Human Nature, iOTA, All Saints' Virginia Gay and cast members of ge musicals Miss Saigon, The Hatpin and Respect. "The success of the event speaks for itself ($75,000 raised in the past two concerts), so it's easier to get artists this year. But it's still difficult to lock down the big names for a charity concert", says Rennie.
As a musical theatre rising talent – winner of the 2003 Sydney Cabaret Convention and acclaimed for his debut in New York in 2004 – Shaun Rennie has resorted to his network both to participate in the concert and to attend it.
"Looking at the demographics of this concert, there are a lot of musical theatre related people. But I've been trying these last two years to push it out of the industry and reach the general public."
Rennie and his producers - his youngest brother Adam and old time family friends Monica and Greg Smith - decided to set up Light the Night to help the cause of leukaemia in 2005. The concert benefits helped the Arrow bone marrow transplant foundation to develop a transplant recipients database in Australia and New Zealand.
Funds from 2006 were used in research projects at the St Vincent's bone marrow transplant unit. And this year's proceeds will go to a "gene switch" research scheme of the Haematology research team at St Vincent’s to help design new strategies for cancer therapy.
"Science is progressing so quickly that Matthew is benefiting from treatments that weren't available three years ago", says Rennie. "We do believe that a cure to leukaemia is possible within our lifetime."
