Sydney Chamber Choir to Present THE HUMAN SPIRIT This Month

Sydney Chamber Choir will give voice to powerful Latvian traditions of songs against oppression, to Palestinian poetic visions and an exquisite celebration of Australian nature in a special concert at Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, at 7.30pm on Saturday 23 September.

The Human Spirit includes the world premiere of Espoir (Hope) by rising star, Elizabeth Younan, drawing on her Lebanese upbringing and the yearning words of Palestinian poet May Ziedah.   

When the World Closes its Eyes by fellow Sydney composer Ella Macens will be reprised with Macens' glorious mix of pop, classical, folk and Baltic traditions – and her salute to a famed Latvian song of national resistance.

Direct from Latvia – where singing is so integral to its culture – comes the radiant Kyrie and Gloria from Missa Rigensis by Uģis Prauliņš, a boy chorister himself in Riga Cathedral and later eclectic rock musician. It's an intense and intimate work melding, he says, his own traditions with the great Renaissance choral masses, “but without overwhelming force or volume”.

Central to The Human Spirit concert is An Australian Song Cycle by the prolific screen and symphonic composer Joe Twist, with his evocative visions of our landscape, drawing words from  seven of our best poets – and its devastation from bushfires. Applauded for his recent Adelaide Festival oratorio Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan, Twist says his first inspiration for this major Song Cycle was the vibrant rainforests of his childhood on the Gold Coast.

       “These outstanding new Australian compositions by Joe Twist, Ella Macens and now Elizabeth Younan were all commissioned by Sydney Chamber Choir,” says conductor and music director Sam Allchurch. 

“We're always excited premiering new work, going into unchartered territory. Elizabeth Younan's     Espoir is so beautiful and builds to a thrilling choral tour de force.  And we're even more delighted to oblige when our audiences ask to hear new commissions again – as with Joe and Ella's work.”

The Human Spirit includes the Credo from Missa Unitatis, a radically exuberant celebration of the traditionally solemn mass by British composer Antony Pitts, former AD of Sydney's Song Company.   

Following the concert, Sydney Chamber Choir journeys to the inaugural Adelaide Chamber Choir Festival to join other top state choirs in the best of Australian choral singing on 6-8th October 2023.

The Human Spirit is also available streamed as a digital concert on Thursday, 28 September at 7.30pm. Price $24. Tickets at Australian Digital Concert Hall.

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