Above: Sam Allchurch, Conductor and Artistic Director of Sydney Chamber Choir.
Warmth in concert performance is heightened by diversity. Carefully structured diversity and a programme of works which reflect similar approaches or goals between them also assists in this regard. Musical warmth also results when degrees of intensity or colour benefit from any quality collaboration with composers or other musicians.
And so it was on Saturday night as the Sydney Chamber Choir began its 2023 performance season at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s Verbrugghen Hall. SCC is a virtuoso band of choristers whose concerts continue to practise all of the above methods of achieving warmth and in presentation and performance for us.
In the programming and execution of this concert, SCC shared eight works with us. Many of these works, many of which were included as multi-movement moments, experiment with divisions of the performing choir. This is the breaking up of the full choir into separate choirs or innovative divisions and intricate layering of vocal groups.
SCC imbued as always their study of these works with great energy to demonstrate the success of the composers’ ingenious approach to choral sound to manipulate text. Warmth from this capable choir’s signature crystal- clear communication was enhanced through collaboration with members of Camerata Antica providing lines on instrumental wind from the era.
This quartet, of cornetto and sackbutts led by Matthew Manchester, combined the inimitable bold but subtle early music tone colours to the choral texture in works by Gabrielli. They also played an instrumental interlude in this concert by the same composer, the Canzon seconda, C187 from 1608 with organist Thomas Wilson.
SCC’s fortified performances of works by Gabrielli in collaboration with the Camerata Antica instrumental troupe showed the choir as a comfortable early music specialist. It showed them the choir in an exciting light as it departed from what is often an unaccompanied exploration of works from centuries ago. Gabrielli’s Magnificat a 14 C79 (1615) with triple choir and instruments concluded this concert with tasteful splendour.
Above: Cornetto player and Leader of Camerata Antica, Matthew Manchester.
As well as some fine collaborations this concert SCC showcased their incredible skill at presenting with care and colour some quite brilliant word painting in unaccompanied early and recent works. Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir from the 1920s was a perfect example of the emotion and effect possible from a clever composer manipulating ancient text and a capable divided choir.
The challenge in this work to instantly establish the dramatic vista at each movement’s outset was well answered by conductor and choirs. Also, the need to deliver the mood and textural undulations seamlessly as a well blended double choir was in excellent hands here.It was an engaging performance, endearing us to this work. Musical warmth turned hot at this part of the programme.
As well as the scintillating word and textural painting in this exciting Latin Mass setting, linguistic diversity and the choir’s versatility of language delivery came in the form of the seventeenth-century German Magnificat by Heinrich Schütz.
Just as Gabrielli and Schütz’s works on similar texts complemented each other and supplied warm diversity, so too we heard a pair of recent works by antipodean composers including English texts in their compositions.
The works previously commissioned for SCC, Clare Maclean’s Christ the King (1984) and Brooke Shelley’s Heavenly Father (2022) were sung with pleasing command despite the difficult fragmentary combination of English and Latin or English and German texts and employing elevated, complex concepts.
Above: Members of Sydney Chamber Choir with Conductor Sam Allchurch.
These works from local composers showcased the skill of SCC to promote contemporary additions to the canon and to collaborate with current composers. The presentation of successful programmes where modern choral compositions extend the ingenuity of composers from centuries ago reach a zenith in the programme with exciting performances of these works.
It gives any audience an open mind experience and a warm listening experience to experience such modern choral works and also compositions centuries apart blending so well in the one programme.
In addition to a keenly efficient, emotional sing through the programme, production values for the realisation of this ‘Spendour & Mystery’ concert event was as strong. As the singing across several styles and languages was impressively clear. The Verbrugghen Hall prior to the concert was swathed in vivid, welcoming lighting. The digital or printed programme was typically very detailed with regards to formidable programme notes by Natalie Shea, and the concert was available to be streamed on the Australian Digital Concert Hall.
Sydney Chamber Choir’s next concert, ‘Winter Nights’ at pier 2-3’s ‘The Nielsen” on June 24 . This excellent venue acoustic will highlight the choir’s clear group voice in a concert where classical music meets cabaret and modern song arrangements.