About: The Third Voice
The Third Voice is an Australian trio of singers - Clarita Derwent, Gemma Turner, and Christina Mimmocchi. Each member is an experienced soloist in their own right, who first met early in their careers in the popular group Blindman's Holiday. They share a passion for well-written songs, harmonious voices, and music that engages both the body and the mind. In The Third Voice, they collaborate to create original songs and curate material from a variety of sources that they love. They arrange these songs as a cappella pieces or add new elements with guitar, live-looping, concertina, cello, and percussion.
Throughout their careers, they have been involved in various musical endeavours, including songwriting, a cappella performance, leading bands, conducting choirs, and exploring different musical styles both in Australia and internationally.
Since forming in Sydney, the trio has performed at a range of venues, events, and festivals across Australia, including the Cobargo Folk Festival and the National Folk Festival. They have recently released their debut EP, thanks to a grant from the Inner West Council.
The new album with The Third Voice & Band includes original songs by Christina and Gemma, as well as new arrangements of Afro-Cuban songs by Clarita. The EP, produced by Llew Kiek, also showcases his impressive guitar skills and features percussion by Jess Ciampa and bass by Peter Firth. Additional voices from community choirs directed by Christina and Gemma can also be heard on the recording.
The Third Voice is available for concerts, events, workshops, collaborations and recording projects.
Photo: Neil Hendry
Christina Mimmocchi
Christina is a folk singer who has been performing for many years. She has a large of original songs, ranging from soft and delicate to powerful social justice anthems.
Christina has a talent for connecting with her audience and telling engaging stories. She is also passionate about music as a way of connecting people and making community, leads a number of community choirs, and has presented place-specific weekend workshops (Cockatoo Island, Dubbo, Canowindra). In 2009 Christina held the National Folk Fellowship and in 2011, she released her solo album "Rumours of Summer" with some of Australia's top musicians. Her latest project, "Twelve Good Rooms," is a song cycle inspired by the early colonial days of Randwick.
A skilled collaborator, Christina has created various theatre productions (Lola’s Keg Night (Merrigong Theatre), Amulet(with Fiestaville Choir), Bound for Botany Bay (La Perouse Museum), 1917:Strike to commemorate the centenary of Australia’s great strike) and written commissioned songs for different events. She enjoys organising events that bring people together through music, including recently Out & Loud & Proud (international LGBTIQA+ choral festival with Sydney World Pride), Local Vocal at Wylie’s Baths and Women’s Work, and International Women’s Day cabaret for Randwick Council.
In decades past she managed a music venue, worked in youth theatre and for arts funding organisations, and played tenor and baritone saxes. Aside from her solo work, Christina performs with singer Margaret Walters as PerSisters and guitarist Greg White as Stormbirds.
Clarita Derwent
Clarita's musical journey began at a young with a diverse background in singing, dancing, and playing instruments. She studied classical violin, piano, ballet, and voice early on and performed regularly throughout her teens in bands, musicals and vocal groups.
Clarita furthered her studies in Musical Theatre and Jazz singing, and danced with Kinetic Energy Dance Company before travelling to Japan and India where she studied Indian classical singing. As a fluent Spanish speaker she lived in Mexico and travelled Central America.
For over two decades, Clarita has immersed herself in the musical cultures of the Latin America, particularly Cuba. She is a qualified Event & Tour Manager, organising events across Australia and serving as a producer for the Smith Family's 'Life Long Learning' programme since its inception in 2005. In between her annual trips to Cuba, she has performed and recorded with various bands in Australia, including Son Veneno, Jose Prates Big Band, Sandunga, Errol Renaud & Caribbean Soul, and Charanga Libre. Clarita has also studied music and dance with Cutumba Folklorico Dance Company, one of Cuba's oldest and most respected ensembles. She has a deep understanding of Lucumí (Santería), the Afro-Cuban spiritual practice that involves a connection with the natural elements. This vocal music is a crucial aspect of The Third Voice's distinctive sound. The standout performance from previous shows would be the Inaugural Sorry Day Concert 1998 performance at the Sydney Opera House, featuring Kev Carmody, Archie Roach, and Ruby Hunter.
Gemma Turner
Gemma is a singer and singing educator based in Sydney who specializes in various of contemporary popular music.
She has a particular passion for a cappella singing and songwriting, and her current project is The Third Voice.
Over the past thirty years, she has toured nationally and internationally with several ensembles, including Blindman's Holiday, The Transylvaniacs, Kengugro, and Tokakros. Gemma has experience coaching singers of all levels, from beginners to professionals, in different settings such as postgraduate tertiary education, community music, and mental health. She is also an independent academic researcher with a PhD from the University of Sydney and previously worked as a lecturer and postgraduate supervisor at the Australian Institute of Music from 2011 to 2020.
Her work has been published globally. Currently, her research focuses on group singing for mental health, singing as a part of Australian Indigenous language revitalization, and ecomusicology.
If you are interested in learning more about her research, please visit her profile on ResearchGate:https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gemma-Turner-6.
Our Story
How The Third Voice began - a series of fortunate events.
The link between these three vocalists was the highly regarded a cappella group Blindman's Holiday. Gemma was in the original lineup (1986-1998), Clarita had been in Blindman's Holiday (1993-2009) and Christina came in later (2001-2007).
When Christina Mimmocchi and Gemma Turner bumped into each other while queuing to hear the writers of Redfern Now at the Sydney Writers Festival in 2014, they had never worked together but knew each other's work. Gemma's songs were still in the repertoire of Blindman's Holiday.
Clarita and Gemma had sung together for years in 'BMH' before Gemma left the quintet, rejoining later to perform together with Clarita & original BMH member Linda Marr in the early 2000s. For some reason, which neither can remember, they got together to sing during a break in the pandemic. The aim was to have a bit of fun, no expectations, and no rules except that they should have a meaningful connection to the songs they chose.
Around that time, Clarita and Christina had formed a duo called Siakara with the aim of performing and teaching the Afro-Cuban material that Clarita specialised in during her many years visiting Cuba. Then, in a way that seems inevitable in retrospect, the three pieces of the puzzle clicked together, and they became The Third Voice in mid-2021.
The first thing that happened at this point was another lockdown, so their first demo of songs was recorded remotely with each vocal part sent from their individual home computers. But their determination paid off, and the group launched live in December of that year.
The days of remote rehearsals.