The Newcastle choir has not performed at the National Eisteddfod since 2008, not long after Mrs Connett took over as choir director from her mother Wynette Horne.

“It’s been eight years,” Mrs Connett said. “I took over towards the end of 2007 and we went down in 2008.

“I had only had the choir for about eight months and it was our first trip to Canberra. It was mainly for us to see what other choirs were sounding like.”

Mrs Connett said the trip changed her approach to the choir.

“My mother had taken it to great success before me,” Mrs Connett said. “But it was a reshaping of the choir at that time.”

This year’s return was putting into practice the changes.

“We didn’t expect to win,” she said. “I had hoped we would do well and get some feedback on how we can improve, which we did get as well.

“Even through that final section, listening to the other choirs I was thinking we were not going to be placed. To hear we’d won, I couldn’t speak a word.”

The Waratah Girls Choir, founded in 1982 by Mrs Horne, won the contemporary section and the popular section as well as the prestigious Australian Open Choral Challenge. The choir was second in the sacred section.

Mrs Connett felt it was the choir’s contrasting pieces which won over the judges.

“I think you listen to other choirs differently to what you listen to your own,” she said, saying she was more critical of her choir.

“I didn’t feel we had done as well as what we had done in the past.

“It was such a big surprise.

“Our songs were very different. Our contrasting program was what tipped us over the edge, the versatility of our program.”

The choir has been invited to perform at Choralfest in Brisbane next year and to tour Japan in 2018 and Mrs Connett said the performances in Canberra had given the choir a great deal of confidence and self-belief.