Sydney Chamber Choir | 50th Anniversary Gala

July 5, 2025 City Recital Hall, Sydney, NSW

Sydney Chamber Choir
Sam Allchurch – Conductor
Brooke Window – Soprano
Richard Butler – Tenor
Nicola Bell – Oboe/Cor anglais
Richard Shaw – Clarinet
Andrew Barnes – Bassoon
Euan Harvey – French horn
Emily Granger – Harp
Jess Ciampa – Percussion

What an extraordinary gift it is to be sung to. At Sydney Chamber Choir’s 50th Anniversary Gala, the audience didn’t merely attend a concert, we were wrapped in a choral love letter, penned by five diverse and compelling Australian composers and delivered with finesse and joy.

The program, of works that were all commissioned by or for the choir, promised love in all its forms – not just the romantic kind, but love of place, of community, of memory, of the artform itself. It was a generous, ambitious undertaking: five world premieres in the first half, followed by Paul Stanhope’s Requiem (2021), a landmark work that deserves recognition as one of Australia’s most significant choral compositions of recent time.

From left to right: Brooke Window (Soprano), Richard Butler (Tenor), Luke Byrne, Anne Cawrse, Meta Cohen, Nardi Simpson, Paul Stanhope

The concert opened barefoot and beautiful, with Nardi Simpson’s Dharriwaa – Narran Lakes Dreaming. This was no ordinary choral piece, it felt like a musical map of Country, sung and spoken into being. The recorded voices of Simpson’s family, including the laughter of children, were woven through the performance like threads of memory. The choir sang both with and behind these recordings, becoming companions to the stories in a moving experience of shared presence and deep respect.

Anne Cawrse’s The Greatest of These followed – a luminous setting of the well-known Corinthians passage, “Love is patient, love is kind.” In Cawrse’s hands the familiar text became newly tender and introspective. Rests were treated like breath, letting meaning linger. She draws on a wide palette of choral textures, from solo lines and intimate vocal clusters to rich, full-bodied close harmony, casting glints of colour and light like stained glass in a sunlit wedding chapel.

Then came a moment of affection and heart with Paul Stanhope’s We Might Be Fifty. With Katherine Mansfield’s poem as his guide, Stanhope conjured domestic intimacy, camomile tea, saucepan shadows, dripping taps, and painted the text into music that expressed a gentle familiarity. As a former director of the choir, Stanhope knows this instrument inside out. The writing fit like a favourite jumper, warm and well-loved, and the choir clearly revelled in it.

In Luke Byrne’s Song, setting a poem by Victor Daley, the text asks, “What shall a man remember, when he is old?” Byrne’s answer came wrapped in gently pulsing vocal textures, wordless sighs and rhythmic breath forming a base for the poem to rest lightly upon. Generous, lyrical and deeply felt. Knowing it was commissioned as a gift for a loved one made its impact all the more powerful.

Meta Cohen’s Meteora was a shining star-map of longing and cosmic possibility. Inspired by the idea of two people gazing at the same stars from different places, it captured that ache of love across distance. The tenor and bass duet pulsed with intimacy while the choral textures opened like galaxies. At the climax, the sopranos blazed into their highest register and the whole choir rang out with a kind of radiant desperation. Meteoric!

If the first half of the concert was a bouquet, the second was a wreath.

Stanhope’s Requiem, now also released on ABC Classic, is not just a modern reimagining of the mass for the dead, it is a choral meditation on mortality that is distinctly Australian in both voice and vision. From the gently shining harp lines and bell-like winds of the Introit to the final whispered words of In Paradisum, Stanhope’s Requiem unfolded with care and clarity and was expertly conducted by Sam Allchurch throughout.

The Kyrie was anything but static – pleading and urgent, with soaring sopranos rising over a luminous backdrop of harp and Jess Ciampa’s expressive percussion. Though it opened in intensity, the movement settled into a contemplative stillness by the close, while The Tree Grave and Song set Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s poetry in haunting arias for soprano and tenor.

The Sanctus, written in memory of Richard Gill, burst with rhythmic exuberance, capturing his energy and spirit. In the Agnus Dei, Mary Elizabeth Frye’s “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep” was paired with Latin chant, tenor Richard Butler and soprano Brooke Window trading lines with moving simplicity.

Among many highlights was Dawn Wail for the Dead, where Euan Harvey’s stunning horn solo opened a duet underscored by gentle percussion and the soft interplay of harp and winds. This gave way to the glowing Lux Aeterna, with Emily Granger’s harp painting light in sound.

In Paradisum, paired with Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the Thing with Feathers,” combined chant and soaring solo lines. Woodwinds flitted like birds; the choir’s radiant a cappella “chorus angelorum” bloomed and faded. The music ascended to heaven then dissolved with a whisper that felt like a prayer.

…and the audience erupted. This wasn’t just a gala concert, it was a portrait of the choir as an artistic force: an Australian icon deeply connected to its time and place. What a milestone! Here’s to another 50 years of bold and colourful music-making.

Photo Credit: Robert Catto