The Oriana Management Team
Oriana Arts is a community-based, not-for-profit incorporated association. It is governed by a management team, with elections for all positions on the management team held each year at the association's Annual General Meeting.
From time to time, the Management Committee may extend the honour of Life Membership to people who have been members of the organisation and who have provided outstanding services or assistance in the advancement of the Choir.
Oriana's Life Members include:
Fay Baker, awarded in 2016
Joachim Rother, awarded in 2018
Kendall Snowden, awarded in 2018
Melissa Innes, awarded in 2019
Meet The Team
Melissa Innes
President
Melissa has administratively led Oriana since its inception in 2005.
An Associate Lecturer in Management and Human Resource Management at University of the Sunshine Coast, and proud mother of four boys, Melissa feels honoured to be President of the choir she considers to be her 'extended family'.
Singing soprano in the choir, Melissa toured internationally with Oriana in 2012 and 2016; and with her fellow choristers, has defended their Queensland Champion Choir title at the Heritage Queensland Eisteddfod on many an occasion.
Melissa takes great joy from working with a dedicated and passionate committee to develop opportunities for choristers to deliver quality choral performances to Oriana's valued patrons of the Sunshine Coast and beyond.
Carol Quin
Vice President
Carol joined the choir in 2009 and has been privileged to be a part of Oriana’s events and successes ever since, which have included overseas tours to UK and Europe in 2012, 2016 and 2019. Being a member of Oriana brings opportunities and experiences which are unique and often life -changing!
Carol's tertiary qualifications include a B.Sc with a psychology major, and post -graduate studies in financial planning. She currently works full- time as a senior risk manager at ANZ Bank. Carol is honoured to represent Oriana as Vice-President . She is constantly in awe of the power of music to uplift, strengthen and bring people together.
Terry Frankling
Treasurer
Terry joined Oriana in 2017 after having sung in other choral groups on and off throughout her life. She loves the variety of music performed by Oriana, the wonderful people, and the high standards always maintained by the choir. The highlight of her time with Oriana so far was the tour to Italy in 2019.
Terry is an accountant and has worked for SDE Accountants on the Sunshine Coast since 2011. She gladly shares her accounting qualifications and expertise with Oriana in her role as Treasurer.
Jo Evans
Covid Taskforce
Jo grew up with a love of music, singing in a variety of choirs in her youth, followed by barbershop and community choirs in New Zealand, the UK and Brunei Darussalam over the past 20 years. After moving to Australia in 2012 Jo was ecstatic to find and join, a choir of the calibre of Oriana, in 2013. Apart from the stunning quality of the choir, one of the best aspects of Oriana was, and still is, the welcoming family feeling that underpins this close-knit group of singers.
A highlight for Jo was spending more time singing with, and getting to know, people on the 2016 European Tour.
Jo says of belonging to the choir, “Whatever else goes on in life and work, Oriana always makes my heart sing!” She feels that it is both a pleasure and an honour to be able to contribute back to Oriana Choir.
Beth Fitzpatrick
Marketing
Beth joined Oriana in 2021. She is a passionate chorister having sung in choirs in Australia, Japan and New Zealand. Her choir experience has included the Queensland Choir, Cecilian Singers (NZ), Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament Choir (NZ), the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir, Tudor Choristers and the Brisbane Concert Choir. When she is not singing, Beth is an immigration professional with over 20 years’ experience in visas, citizenship and complex migration matters.
Sharon Fitness
Production Manager
Sharon works full-time as an adminstrator at subscription television channel ACCTV, as well as dabbling in design and public relations consultancy with her own business, Joyful Media.
Sharon enjoys singing, pets and cooking and is a bit of a movie buff. She is a founding member of Oriana and is responsible for creating all of our great ‘looks’ from season to season.
Secretary
Vanessa has spent the past 18 years working from her home office in Maroochydore for a global software company, providing product support, training and implementation services for their Asia Pacific customer base.
Singing and parenting two beautiful children are Vanessa's other passions and she has been singing on the Sunshine Coast with a number of community choirs before joining Oriana Choir in 2018. The Choir's tour to Italy in 2019 was a motivating factor to join and she has not looked back since, enjoying the variety of repertoire, seasonal music directors and performing opportunities on offer.
New to the committee in 2021, Vanessa is happy to lend her support to the executive team and committee in this progressive choir.
Chris Mills
Webmaster
Chris joined Oriana in 2015 and was elected to the committee the following year. Although new to Oriana at that time he brought a wealth of experience in community organisation management.
Chris has been President of two theatre companies both here and in New Zealand, been on several sports club committees, Rotary and most importantly as a Councillor where he chaired two Council sub committees.
Chris has considerable experience in marketing and integration with digital media and maintains not only our website, but all of the other "tech"that the choir uses in its day to day operation.
This year has been challenging as most of our administration has had to be done using services like Zoom, Flock and Choraltracks among other apps we now use. "I am continually amazed with the adaptability of the people on the Committee and the membership at large who have embraced these changes and have taken on the steep learning curve with gusto!"
Vanessa Smith