Jenny Duck-Chong mezzo soprano + Jo Allan piano | Recital
18 April, 2026, St John’s Darlinghurst, NSW
Two of Sydney’s cultural warriors for the ‘new’ Jenny Duck-Chong and Jo Allan performed a salon style vocal concert in the historic St John’s Darlinghurst built in the 1850’s. Some of the 19 works performed were nigh on a minute and none outstayed their welcome.
Since her death in 2000 Dulcie Holland’s music has been largely ignored but over the last year her music is again tracking on the radar. This recital opened and closed with two of her 1993 Six Recital Songs to texts by Jyoti Brunsdon. Holland was a product of her time and her music is immersed in the harmonies and melodic styles of early 20th century British music. Over the course of her composing lifetime Holland imbued her compositions with a surface sheen of immediate acceptance whilst developing a voice that stands the passage of time. Duck-Chong and Allan perfectly entered the spirit of each song. Charming. Another work of importance was May by Margaret Sutherland to a text by John Shaw Neilson. Rich harmonies with at times dramatic vocal writing this little gem enthralled all.
One short bracket of two Debussy songs and a solo piano work by the Japanese master Toru Takemitsu was inspired programming and wonderfully performed. The Frenchness of Debussy is an early influence in the music of Takemitsu and the three works one after each other gave strength to the importance of the music. The songs were as if extensions of Debussy’s great piano cycle the Preludes with enchanting melodic lines for the singer floating on top as if gossamer. Jo Allan performed the Takemitsu Rain Tree Sketch II with utmost care bringing out all the colours of the music – a landscape of mist and rain and clouds. Delightful.
Throughout this short recital Jenny Duck-Chong and Jo Allan explored different tonal colours and were always the servants of the music. At the conclusion of the concert the incredibly attentive audience beamed.
There are more recitals in this lovely little church throughout the year.
Program
Dulcie Holland (1913-2000) – Silence is Golden from Six Recital Songs (1993)
Ned Rorem (1923-2022) – Early in the morning (1957)
Margaret Sutherland (1897-1984) – May from Five Songs of John Shaw Neilson (1936)
Ned Rorem – Rain in Spring (1956)
Claude Debussy (1862-1918) – La Grotte from Trois chansons de France (1904)
Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) – Rain Tree Sketch II (1992)
Claude Debussy – Je tremble en voyant ton visage – from Le Promenade des deux amants (1910)
Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947) – A Chloris (1913)
Ned Rorem – O You Whom I Often and Silently Come (1961)
Ross Harris (b.1945) – Wild Daisies from Wild Daisies (1995)
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) – Canção de cristal (1950)
Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) – Waves from Poems of the Sea (1922)
Samuel Barber (1910-1981) – O Boundless, Boundless Evening from Three Songs (1974)
Andrew Ford (b.1957) – Golden Slumbers (2008)
Kate Reid (b.1948) – Silver (2026)
Alan Tregaskis (1918-1993) – Night (1978)
Samuel Barber – The Monk and his Cat from Hermit Songs (1953)
Samuel Barber – Excursions No. 2 (1944)
Dulcie Holland – Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead – from Six Recital Songs (1993)
