Australia Day
Choral master shares love of music

For the past few years he has organised the popular New Year's Eve Vienna Pops at the Perth Concert Hall, John Christmass has declared the next one would be his last.

But approaching 88, the Mt Nasura choral master and educator is still going strong, driven by his love for music and the pleasure of sharing his knowledge with others.

"You can't sing and be miserable," he said. "No matter how bad you are feeling when you come to choir, you go away happy."

Mr Christmass' many decades of making and teaching music have been recognised with a Medal of the Order of Australia.

He was surprised and thrilled by the award, which adds to a Citizen of the Year (Arts and Culture) Award in 1983, a Centenary Medal in 2001 and WA Senior Citizen of the Year in 2005. "I just love music and I like people," he saidThe former RAAF signalman and Education Department music adviser founded the WA Choral Society and has been music director of the Anzac Day march-past at the Esplanade for 50 years. His Vienna Pops and Best of British concerts are annual institutions and his I Voci Singers, which featured in the TV show Battle of the Choirs, has been running since 1978.

He said he wanted to give young people the opportunities he missed out on as a child growing up in Northam. He still teaches privately, as he has for more than 65 years, but will send students packing if they don't practise. He wants to do more composing and performing, write his autobiography and spend more time in the garden with wife Sally. "If I was any fitter, I'd be dangerous," he said,