Ambassador thoughts

The Australian Chamber Choir – beautifully balanced and in top form!

Australian Chamber Choir | Baroque Christmas December 7, 2025, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Middle Park, VIC The Australian Chamber Choir were beautifully balanced and in top form for their end of year Christmas concert under the direction of Douglas Lawrence and Elizabeth Anderson. The program of mainly baroque music was stretched to include a few very early baroque works

Daniel Brace December 9, 2025

Ambassador thoughts

New light on the Requiem – Gordon Kerry premieres with ACC

Australian Chamber Choir | Renaissance Requiem 17 August 2025, streamed from Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Middle Park, VIC In Missa pro defunctis, composer Gordon Kerry gently rewrites the Requiem tradition, not by burning it down, but by opening windows to let more light in. That sense of illumination framed this thoughtful Australian Chamber Choir program, where Kerry’s newly commissioned

Pepe Newton August 18, 2025

Ambassador thoughts

ACC celebrated Palestrina with many moments of bliss

Australian Chamber Choir | Palestrina 500 Sunday 25 May, 2025, Middle Park, VIC It’s Palestrina’s 500th birthday this year. Born in 1525, Giovanni Pierluigi (as he was known to his friends) da Palestrina was just as famous in his lifetime as in the 500 years since his birth. His music has long been synonymous with church and worship, and with

Daniel Brace May 26, 2025

Ambassador thoughts

Move CDs for Christmas

Alan Holley reviews three new CD’s on the MOVE record label Zoe Knighton, cello + Amir Farid, piano | Brahms Cello Hamish Strathdee, Guitar | Impulses – A CD of of Guitar Australian Chamber Choir | Keys to Heaven Brahms Cello Zoe Knighton, cello and Amir Farid, piano Catalogue number MD 3451 Johannes Brahms 1833–1897 Cello Sonata No. 1

Alan Holley November 30, 2024

Ambassador thoughts

Australian Chamber Choir launches 2025 Season

Australian Chamber Choir, directed by Douglas Lawrence 2025 Program “These programs are designed to make you feel like you’ve just taken a holiday in heaven and come back to earth”, says the ACC’s Manager, Elizabeth Anderson. A subscription to just two of the concerts listed below gives you subscribers’ benefits and up to 20% discount. Baroque Christmas 2024 Saturday 7

Pepe Newton November 7, 2024

Ambassador thoughts

Young organ performers delighted and wowed us – the pews were shaking!

The Scots’ Church International Organ Series | Concert 4: Student Recital September 14, 2024, The Scots’ Church, Melbourne, VIC Organ and harpsichord students from Thomas Heywood, Jennifer Chou, Elizabeth Anderson and Douglas Lawrence Opportunities for performance are an essential part of the development of young musicians, they are also a wonderful opportunity for us as listeners to hear loved or

Daniel Brace September 18, 2024

Merriment and energy in Australian Chamber Choir’s Baroque Christmas

Australian Chamber Choir | Baroque Christmas 2023 Sunday, 10 December, 2023, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Middle Park Directed by Douglas Lawrence Soprano: Katherine Lieschke, Kate McBride Alto: Elizabeth Anderson, Isobel Todd Tenor: Will Carr, Sam Rowe Bass: Thomas Drent, Kieran Macfarlane Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Middle Park, Melbourne, has an outstanding acoustic. The elegant and very wide

Daniel Brace December 11, 2023

Choirs

New Carols by Mark Tredinnick and Alan Holley

classikON MD Pepe Newton caught up with Australian composer (and classikON Ambassador) Alan Holley to chat about his upcoming world premieres. Pepe Newton: Alan, over the next few weeks, new vocal compositions by you to texts by Mark Tredinnick will be premiered in Carol Concerts in Victoria. Are Christmas Carols your new thing? Alan Holley: A few years back I

Pepe Newton November 7, 2023

A choir in full song, it’s a beautiful thing… ACC Mozart Requiem

Australian Chamber Choir | Mozart Requiem May 27, 2023, Scots’ Church, Melbourne It is so much fun watching a choir in full song. Mouths moving, chests heaving, and heads bobbing in time to the music. Everyone together in perfect unison. It’s a beautiful thing. So it was at the Australian Chamber Choir’s performance of the Mozart Requiem at Scots’ Church

Daniel Brace May 28, 2023

Ambassador thoughts

Truly magical moments from ACC’s carols

Australian Chamber Choir | A Ceremony of Carols Sunday 11 December, 2022, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Middle Park Douglas Lawrence – musical director Melina van Leeuwen – harp soloist It is Christmas time and carols are everywhere! They seem as ever present as the deafening racket of the cicadas around my suburb or the screeching of the koels as

Alan Holley December 14, 2022

Agata’s Cantata a heavenly gem

Australian Chamber Choir Vivaldi’s Gloria, Agata’s Cantata Live streamed from the Scots’ Church, Melbourne on 7 May, 2022 and available on demand at access.auschoir.org Vivaldi’s well-known Gloria is one of my favourite choral works to sing. Joyful and exuberant it’s my regular go to for a quick pick-me-up. As soon as I hear that blasting trumpet fanfare-like opening it puts a

Pepe Newton May 14, 2022

Australian Chamber Choir bring to life a female composer’s work from 280 years past

During Vivaldi’s time teaching at the Ospedale della Pietà (1703-40), this orphanage developed an international reputation for its concerts, presented exclusively by the young women who were educated there. His Gloria and Four Seasons were among hundreds of works performed for the first time by the orphans of the Pietà. Around 1720, Agata, a baby born without fingers on her

Pepe Newton March 8, 2022

Australian Chamber Choir – An Amazing Concert!

“Glück zum neuen Jahr!“ to the Australian Chamber Choir, what an amazing concert!With the advent of Covid-19, I have attended several concerts on-line, and what a treat it has been, but the Australian Chamber Choir’s performance of Ludwig van We Missed Your Birthday is inarguably the best. What a delight! Artistic Director Douglas Lawrence’s microphone could have recorded better, which

Jacinta Richardson March 31, 2021

Ambassador thoughts

Elizabeth Anderson on MDCH ‘Thrilling!’

Elizabeth Anderson (harpsichord) | JS Bach: Goldberg Variations Melbourne Digital Concert Hall 8:30pm Friday 20 November, 2020 Approaching Bach’s Goldberg Variations as a listener requires a certain reverence. Although there are many dramatic moments, the Aria and 30 variations are, with one notable exception, unrelentingly contrapuntal and seriously introspective. You cannot listen to them on your iPhone while doing the

Daniel Kaan November 21, 2020

Ambassador thoughts

CD Review: Australian Chamber Choir’s Baroque Christmas

I first came across the Australian Chamber Choir several years ago when classikON asked me to review one of their performances in Sydney. In 2017 I wrote of hearing for the first time this performance ensemble; ‘Sometimes you go to a concert and after just a few seconds know you are in for a treat. Lucky me, I had that

Alan Holley October 29, 2020

Australian Chamber Choir’s “Keys to Heaven” showcased their sumptuous sound

In the recently restored and now even more exquisite Christ Church St Laurence, the Australian Chamber Choir presented Keys to Heaven, a concert of music dating from the late 1400’s through to about 1640. The sumptuous sound of one of Australia’s leading vocal ensembles in this visually delightful church transported the enthusiastic audience to another place, another time when music

Alan Holley November 25, 2019

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