We saw this at the White Bay Power Station. This is a decommissioned power plant an hour walk from the CBD. It is 38000sq meters. It is a magnificent relic. It was Sydney’s last remaining and longest serving power plant.
And it is Sydney’s latest Arts Precinct .Part of it has the dimensions , acoustics and superspace of an Industrial Cathedral. Last Saturday to a packed audience , the Chamber Singers of the Sydney Philharmonia Choir with the accompanying Sydney Philharmonia Ensemble sang there. A choir inside a cathedral. A clash of civilisations..Modern Syney vs the brute industrial might of the last century.
The main works were of a predominantly Australian genre. Joseph Twist’s Timeless Land combined his music with some of our major poets: Banjo Patterson, Henry Lawson,Judith Wright . It was a reminder of where we came from, where we are and where we might be going. Christopher Tins’ “The Lost Birds ” was music composed to poems of loss , despair and hope. One , Sara Teasdale is a famous American poet and there was a special poignancy when the Choir sang her “All That Could Never Be Said”…
All that could never be said
All that could never be done.
Wait for us at last.
Somewhere at the back of the Sun. ”
In another of her poems “There will come Soft Rains” about the futility of War ,an eerie solemn silence descended upon us at the choir’s finish.
However a sprinkling of humour and fun at times engaged the audience, reminding us not to take things too seriously.The Winter of Vivaldi’s Four seasons saw the choir put on berets and beanies and sang Brr Brrrr to shake the cold away. And Michael Leunig’s ” Magpie ” brought us a mischievous joy.
It was all superbly sung and conducted. Brett Weymark is a distinguished Choral Conductor. The voices of the choristers singing in an amalgam of space time and poem soared , at times lifting us to the heavens. The Philharmonia Ensemble augmented the experience and the piano ,beautifully played by Tim Cunniffe echoed the fragility of so much of what the poetry sought to express. In the near distance ,standing as they had for so long were the turbine, boiler and the gantry of yesteryear.
Photographer Keith Saunders
