Sydney Chamber Choir Brings WINTER NIGHTS CABARET to The Neilson

Sydney Chamber Choir defies the myth that choirs sing only church music with a warm, seductive and very secular evening of beautiful balladry and melodies at The Neilson ACO Pier 2/3, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay, with two cabaret-style performances at 5pm and 7.30pm on Saturday 24 June.

Winter Nights includes the world premiere of Three Night Songs by Australian composer Heather Percy, but is otherwise a distinctly French affair – with timeless ballads by cabaret legends Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel and irresistible flights of fancy from Debussy and Ravel, in the only music they wrote for unaccompanied choir.  

Guest director and celebrated arranger Naomi Crellin has transformed iconic songs like Michel Legrand’s Windmills of your Mind, Brel’s If you go Away – Ne me quitte pas and Piaf’s La vie en rose into richly varied choral pieces. 

“I’ve given the Piaf an old world feel similar to early Disney film scores, jazzed up by our piano trio; and Vernon Duke’s April in Paris is a swing standard, here with the soloist classily supported by the Choir’s males,” says Crellin, a vocalist herself and Music Director of acclaimed contemporary acapella group The Idea of North. 

“I come from an extended family of classical musicians, so I’m a bit of a black sheep of the family with my love of jazz!” 

New York-based, Australian-born vocalist Jo Lawry will sing April in Paris and also Crellin’s new arrangement for Sting’s La belle dame sans regrets, having toured with Sting as his backing singer.  

Conducted by Sam Allchurch, the choir will journey into a world of medieval romance with Debussy’s lively Trois Chansons; three songs by Ravel about escaping into the woods and fables of our imagination; and Poulenc’s darker dreams and complex harmonies in his song cycle Un soir de neige. 

Audiences will also experience Sleep, a shimmering and enfolding work from America’s charismatic Eric Whitacre composed in 2000 at the height of his fame. 

“Winter Nights I see as French Impressionistic, soft-edged, reflective and abundant with the light and colours of dusk,” says Allchurch, the Choir’s Music Director. 

“It’s a perfect program of essentially twentieth century music to experience not in a church but at a cabaret – with a glass of red. And it’s a thrill to premiere Heather Percy’s new work capturing so well this warm mood.” 

Percy’s Three Night Songs is an ode to watching the end of the day and how nature shifts into new life and the potential of night. It was recorded by Allchurch and Sydney Chamber Choir last year for ABC Classic.