Choral Edge | Reverb

16th November 16, 2025, Norla Dome, The Mission to Seafarers, Docklands, VIC

Choral Edge describe themselves as an ensemble that incorporates elements like journalism and storytelling into their performances, creating Choral-theatre. 

This was a genuinely moving emotional experience.  Many of the works presented at the concert are individually worthy of remark, drawn from a wide variety of sources, from sophisticated choral works that are unquestionably Art Music, to arrangements drawn from folk and rock, but the real strength of the concert was that the works were contextualized and synthesized into a coherent emotional journey.  It was not a case of here is “One Word:  Sonic Meditation XII” (the word was, deliciously, “maybe”) by Pauline Oliveros, but that each work was both a stand-alone composition and simultaneously positioned as a part of a narrative.

The quality of sound produced within the Norla Dome at the Mission to Seafarers was incorporated into the central conceit of the concert, Reverb.  As a musician that uses reverb to influence a sonic result, it is easy to overlook the full word – reverberation.  Reverberation carries with it implications of lasting impact that reach through the ages.  It is this full meaning of the word that the concert chose to explore, explicitly crying out for us to heal ourselves and the earth, because surely that is the very self-same thing.  

We started with a call to place with two very Australian works that shared in common the sounds of the bush recreated through human voices, by Stephen Leek and Juliana Kay.  Kondalilla by Leek was beautifully chaotic in the early morning bird chorus tradition. We were then asked to leave our heart open to what we may experience through an arrangement Vienna Tengs Hymn of Axiom, immediately mixing genres. 

And then we descended into troubled modern life.  Here the term Reverb was explicitly linked to echo chambers and doom scrolling.  As we went on that journey, we were shown damaging self-talk through the Inside Voice series by Rosie O’Reilly, and lasting social damage through arrangements of Zombie (Cranberries) and Torn Screen Door (David Francey).  To journey outwards from sorrow we were taken through a sequence of meditative, explorative works, sometimes getting stuck.  We were being asked to tune and retune our senses to find a space where kindness can live and a place where our future can be safe.  This description really doesn’t do it justice, because even when music uses words, it is more than words, it takes us beyond to raw emotion.  

This was a carefully crafted and curated choral journey that was much more than the sum of it’s parts.   And as a bonus I learned about the Mission to Seafarers, which felt like a well-kept Melbournian secret.

Guest Reviewer: Meredith Connie is a Melbourne-based performer, composer, and educator. She works extensively to create opportunities for young musicians, particularly guitarists, and is a champion of works by historical and modern female composers. A member of the Australian Music Centre, she released a recording of her compositions, Undomesticated Pockets in 2024, exploring the natural world through site-specific works. Her current project, My Splendors are Menagerie, for voice and guitar by Australian female composers will be released in 2025.