The Royal Melbourne Philharmonic | Aria Awards
16 August, 2025 | The Edge, Federation Square, Melbourne, VIC
The Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Aria Awards celebrate emerging singers performing music from the oratorio genre and other sacred works for solo voice. Previous award winners include some of the great emerging singers of the past 19 years, including Amelia Jones, Christian Smith, Max Riebl, and Hamish Gould, among many others.
The Finalists Concert of 2025 was no less luminous with a vibrant lineup of musicians performing a range of technically and musically demanding repertoire.
In the low voices, James Young, a bass-baritone who was awarded Third Place, performed Handel’s The Trumpet shall sound and Bach’s Komm, süsses Kreuz from St Matthew’s Passion, with clarity and great diction, especially in the Bach. Baritone Stephen Coutts’ selection was emotionally charged in Handel’s Where’er you walk and It is Enough from Mendelssohn’s Elijah.
Soprano Belinda Dalton displayed the depth of her range; up high with Tune the Soft Melodious Lute from Handel’s Jeptha and down low in Verdi’s Requiem Aeternam. 23 year old Lily Flynn, a coloratura soprano, awarded Runner Up and People’s Choice, delighted us with the difficult, performing both Bach’s Aus Liebe from St Matthew’s Passion and Let the Bright Seraphim by Handel. The orchestra reductions of both pieces played with precision and flair by awards accompanist Peter de Jager.
2024 Song Company Emerging Talent, Eliza Bennetts O’Connor, a Reserve Finalist was awarded Conductors Encouragement Award, and the only performer to present a contemporary work, I Gave My Lord an Apple by Australian composer Andrew Anderson, who was also in the audience. It was a lovely contrast to the other works which were mainly very familiar works from the canon of the genre.
The winner of the 2025 RMP Aria program was the Third Prize winner of the competition in 2024, and a runner up in the 2025 Ringwood Eisteddfod, showing hard work and perseverance as well talent and ingredients of success, was soprano Amanda Hargreaves. Ms Hargreaves sang Come unto him from Handel’s Messiah and the recit Willkommen Jetzi and Welche langung für die sinne from Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten, with a clear and consistent delivery with excellent breath control.
For the second part of the event, a small orchestra with extended percussion section (played impressively by Hugh Tidy and Brent Miller) moved in to support 200+ choristers who make up the RMP Oratorio Festival Choir and Orchestra, with singers from the Melbourne University Choral Society and Box Hill Chorale, to perform Dan Forrest’s epic Requiem for the Living.
The work follows the traditional text with the surprising addition of the text from St Matthew’s Gospel, Come unto me, all ye who labor, sung in English towards the end of the work. When I say epic, I mean EPIC. The waves of sound from various massed sections of the choir were underpinned by the grand sound of the full organ played by Andrew Bainbridge, were quite something in The Edge at Federation Square, a very contemporary architectural space.
These sections were contrasted with movements featuring groups of soloists from various sections of the choir, and harpist Katia Mestrovic. Andrew Wailes, who conducted and directed the evening as well as being MC, had all the forces required at his fingertips and did a stellar job bringing together such a large ensemble, harnessing the creative and emotional energy of the score.
It was fascinating to learn from Andrew’s introductory comments that the Sanctus is inspired by the pictures of outer space as taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. You really got a sense of that in the performance, which had a certain majesty and sense of something greater.
It was a big night of music, but there was a wonderful sense of camaraderie, especially during the competition, seeing so many experienced choristers listening intently and with great support to the young singers presenting.
Photo: Lana Kains winner 2024 RMP Aria
