Above: Members of the Soprano and Bass sections of Sydney Chamber Choir. Photo Credit : Geoff Sirmai.
Sydney Chamber Choir’s final programme for 2024 was one truly for the people – chosen by the people, attended by the people and given a warm reception by the people. People’s Choice was a cracker of a concept and expertly balanced programme with which to round off a vibrant year.
Any regular fans and attendees of this group’s 2024 events have already enjoyed an exciting range of works from SCC. The season has been full of choral classics from the choral canon’s centuries past. Australian composers’ works both new and recent, successful arrangements of contemporary ‘pop’ music or jazz standards as well as new music demanding innovative vocal effects for delivery of text.
Such a range is regular and rewarding from the Sydney Chamber Choir. In 2024, with the choir in its 49th year we have been treated by conductor Sam Allchurch and the twenty-something-strong group of vocalists to superbly structured events with something for everyone. These involved enticing audience with engaging sound and talk spots as a growing fan base heard no less than Mozart’s Requiem, Romantic and earlier gems from the English tradition, a slick tranche-de-chill winter Fireside concert to warm all audience hearts. All classics in the assorted genres were also beautifully troped by global new and recent music choices to highlight the versatility on this long-standing musical ensemble.
And this weekend, the audience and online followers of the choir were in the programming driver’s seat. By selecting from categories in website submissions, fans, audience planning to attend and even SCC choristers could vote for SCC repertoire favourites and make a real contribution to the programming of 2024’s final concert. In this climate of social media interaction, online reference and essential audience retention this is a worthy and sure-to-be successful concept.
Above: SCC with conductor Sam Allchurch and organist Thomas Wilson.
Some absolute greatest hits of the Baroque, Romantic and Renaissance eras made their way into the live playlist. The ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’ from Vivaldi’s Gloria of 1716 and this work’s final ‘Cum sancto spiritu’ were not surprising to get across the line. They opened the concert with crisp, clear attack and balance across the group. It was a highlight to hear the Verbrugghen Hall organ in action, also pleasingly balanced with these singers.
Bookending the total selection was the final utterance from the choir ahead of their busy 2024, with another non-surprise re: popularity, as Zadok the Priest rang out with Antipodean joy and shifting colours post-Royal visit to Sydney. Thomas Wilson’s organ accompaniment set once again a formidable feel and narrative in the work’s introduction and throughout over which the vocal wall of sound truly rejoiced.
Pleasing and not surprising from this virtuoso choir was its ability to shift styles, language and centuries between works, and shift gears within each composition also with knife edge agility. Contrasting sections followed each other with superb narrative, changes to nuance and suitable adherence to colours or twists and turns of the text. The third work with organ, in the meaty centre of this concert’s pastiche was none other than the loved Cantique de Jean Racine by Fauré (1856). Its gentle ebb and flow soared with keen and smooth French language delivery.
Choir members and conductor did a fine job of engagingly introducing the winning works in pairs prior to their performance. And some nicely reflected works in the pairings existed. Jumping centuries, the juxtaposition of works by living Australian composer Joe Twist (‘Magpies’ and ‘Lorikeets’ from his Timeless Land: An Australian Song Cycle) heard after Monteverdi’s Ecco Mormorar l’onde was a nice pairing. Both setting and delivering keen texts associated with nature, which the choir delivered equally well despite the differences in polyphonic textures or not, plus accompaniment for the 2021 work (with unique keyboard gestures mastered by Jem Harding) versus an expertly interlocked Monteverdi a cappella moment.
Above: Conductor of Sydney Chamber Choir, Sam Allchurch, leads singers through the diverse ‘People’s Choice’ programme.
Another pairing reached us with contemporary accent via successful arrangements for chamber choir of Lennon and McCartney’s Yesterday followed by Irving Berlin’s Cheek to Cheek. The versions for choir by Australian arrangers Sally Whitwell and David Vance shone in this concert with easy groove and shift to less formal choir stand orientation on the stage.
Intensity of atmosphere was completed in its pairing when Fauré’s Cantique de Jaean Racine was immediately followed by Rachmaninoff’s twentieth-century chant reworking in Bogoroditse Dyevo (‘Rejoice, virgin Mother of God’) from his All-Night Vigil (1915). The seamless sweep of the renovated chant arcs was beautiful sung by the choir voice here- complete with the characteristic bass depths. This Russian sacred work was shown to be a worthy winner of votes to score a spot in this programme.
Rounding out the undulations in style and sonic fireworks were eternal faves such as Victoria sixteenth century O magnum mysterium, once more showing of this group’s control and choral blend as the glorius intimacy of the nativy was conveyed. Bach’s reverberant feast of Baroque choral part singing- Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied- was reflected nicely later in the programme with the modern anthems on cleverly chiselled text in Claire Maclean’s Christ the King (1984) as well as Jonathan Dove’s Ring Out,Wild Bells (2020).
The latter work, preceding the always popular Zadok the Priest, contained thrilling climaxes and some walls of sound. These brilliantly displayed Sydney Chamber Choir show their range, interpretive versatility and sheer power to produce mighty outcries in the chamber choir mode. These moments and several spine tingling similar ones during People’s Choice showcased that SCC will always have our grateful, strong audience vote. We look forward to celebrating and exploring the anniversary year programmes in 2025. These will include a much-anticipated chamber choir rendering of JS Bach’s Mass in B minor after this local choral institution returns from a tour of Germany, in an ambassadorship we the people should choose to be very proud of indeed.
