Tag Archives: Sam Allchurch

Choir Music, Music

SYDNEY CHAMBER CHOIR : GARDEN OF THE SOUL

SydneyChamber Choir & Sam Allchurch
Australian composer Joseph Twist

Congratulations to the Sydney Chamber Choir for the beautiful ‘Garden of the Soul’ concert held at the acoustically brilliant Independent Theatre last  Saturday 20th November, 2021.

The first three pieces were from the Renaissance era (Jacobus Clemens non Papa, Monteverdi, Tomas de Victoria). Then the intensity mounted with three Benjamin Britten hymns (Rosa Mystica, Hymn to the Virgin, Hymn to St Cecilia which featured soloists Megan Cronin, Josephine Gibson, Alison Lockhart and Richard Sanchez).

Then came the long anticipated premiere of composer Joseph Twist’s An Australian Song Cycle, accompanied by Anthea Cottee on the cello and pianist Jem Harding. These eight engaging songs are each based on an Australian poem (Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, Judith Wright, Michael Leunig, Peter Skrzynecki, Les Murray, Jack Twist and Oodgeroo Noonuccal). The choir and the audience easily imagined the birds squawking and swooping around the theatre with Leunig’s ‘Magpie’’ and of Skrzynecki’s ‘Lorikeets’. An Australian Song Cycle is a colourful celebration of our poets, our birds and our landscape. Continue reading SYDNEY CHAMBER CHOIR : GARDEN OF THE SOUL →

Classical Music, Music

SAM ALLCHURCH PICKS UP RICHARD GILL’S BATON WITH HIS DEBUT CONCERT

The Sydney Chamber Choir has has a new Music Director Sam Allchurch. This is after the recent passing of its long time and much loved Music Director Richard Gill. Sam is picking up the baton with his debut concert Saturday week, 30th March at the Great Hall, Sydney University. Music lovers are in for a treat. Mr Allchurch  shared his thoughts about the first program he has curated.

“Taking on the mantle of musical director of Sydney Chamber is a very exciting prospect for a choral conductor – something akin to be handed the keys to a Rolls-Royce!  

To begin our time together, for my first concert as Music Director, I was keen to perform one of the great motets of JS Bach, Singet dem Herren ‘Sing to the Lord a new song’. This is a tour de force of virtuoso choir writing and one of my favourite pieces: joyful and ebullient in its outer movements and beautifully reflective in the slow middle movement. I was also drawn to Singet by the skill of the singers in Sydney Chamber Choir, one of the few ensembles in Australia who can tackle music of this complexity.

I designed a program of music which is about music. In some cases this is obvious – from the Italian Renaissance, Palestrina’s Kyrie from Missa ut re mi fa so la is based on the major scale and Elliott Gyger’s ut queant laxis picks up on the same idea.

In other cases, the link is more subtle – Joseph Twist’s How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? and William Byrd’s Quomodo cantabimus set singing as a means of consolation in difficult times – Twist in contemporary Australia and Byrd in 16th century England. Twist’s piece combines the Latin psalm text with poetry of Oodgeroo Noonuccal to make us think about the relationship between what we are singing and where we are singing it. Continue reading SAM ALLCHURCH PICKS UP RICHARD GILL’S BATON WITH HIS DEBUT CONCERT →

Music

DANCE/CHANT CELEBRATING ROSS EDWARDS

Sydney Chamber Choir is joined by Australia’s leading percussion ensemble, Synergy, to celebrate in music the 75th birthday of one of Australia’s greatest living composers.

“Together we explore some of Ross Edwards’ most joyous pieces for voices and percussion, alongside music by two of the composers who have most inspired him: Hildegard von Bingen and Peter Sculthorpe. We also perform works by Paul Stanhope and Clare Maclean – composers who have in turn found inspiration in Ross’s dancing rhythms and transcendent harmonies – and two newly commissioned pieces by young Australian composers Josephine Gibson and Olivia Swift.” Continue reading DANCE/CHANT CELEBRATING ROSS EDWARDS →

Classical Music, Music

SYDNEY CHAMBER CHOIR DELVES INTO SOME GERMAN ROMANTICISM

The Sydney Chamber Choir, conducted by Sam Allchurch with pianist Jem Harding, invites  music lovers to attend its first performance for the year at the Great Hall, Sydney University in early April.

It will be a great opportunity to dive deep into the luscious music of the German Romantics, with this celebration of the rich beauty of choral voices: the delicacy of Schubert, the eloquence of Mendelssohn and the resonant harmonies of Brahms and Bruckner, culminating in Schoenberg’s passionate and powerful plea for Peace on Earth.

This was the age when music got personal, as composers shook off the old conventions of balance and restraint to seek out fresh ways to communicate feeling.

The Romantics, inspired by the magnificence of Nature, the unexplored paths of dreams and a deep awe of the divine, opened up choral music to unlimited horizons of both grandeur and intimacy.

SAVE THE DATE : –
Saturday April 8 at 7.30 pm at the Great Hall, Sydney University.

For more about German Romantics, visit http://www.sydneychamberchoir.org
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Classical Music, Music

SYDNEY CHAMBER CHOIR ANNOUNCES ITS 2017 SEASON

The Sydney Chamber Choir launched its 2017 season at an inner city function. Founded in 1975, the Choir has forged a reputation as one of Australia’s leading choral ensembles. 

Highly regarded for its interpretation of Renaissance and Baroque works, it is also a champion of contemporary Australian choral music, having commissioned and premiered scores of works by many established and emerging Australian composers.

In 2017 the Choir will be singing music by Hildegard von Bingen, Monteverdi, Buxtehude, Purcell, Bach, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bruckner, Schoenberg, Britten and others. Cantatas, opera, lyric scenes and chant will be heard resounding throughout the Great Hall at the University of Sydney, a  perfect venue for this remarkable ensemble of musicians to display their talents.

As is the  Sydney Chamber Choir’s tradition most of the soloists will come from  the Choir. However Richard Butler will sing the role of St Nicolas in the eponymous Britten cantata. The N.S.W Public Schools senior singers, under the direction of Elizabeth Scott, will join  Richard Butler and the Choir in this work.

Continue reading SYDNEY CHAMBER CHOIR ANNOUNCES ITS 2017 SEASON →