AN EPIC CARMINA BURANA : SYDNEY CHAMBER CHOIR AT CITY RECITAL HALL SYDNEY, SUNDAY 22 MARCH 2026

Above : Sydney Chamber Choir conductor Sam Allchurch

The program
Nardi Simpson: ‘Dharriwaa – Narran Lakes Dreaming’
Paul Stanhope: ‘I am Martuwarra’
David Conte: ‘Invocation and Dance’
Carl Orff: ‘Carmina Burana’

The artists
Sydney Chamber Choir
Sydney Children’s Choir
Sam Allchurch: conductor
Celeste Lazarenko: soprano
Russell Harcourt: tenor
Simon Meadows: baritone
Luke Byrne: piano
Jem Harding: piano
Jess Ciampa, Grace Lee, Chiron Meller, Brian Nixon, Bryn Wood: percussion


What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon that going to hear live music? Sunday’s concert in City Recital Hall promised to be a choral treat, and a choral treat it was. So let’s get started.

Can a piece of music open philosophically? It’s that unusual thought that came to mind as the Sydney Chamber Choir, accompanied by piano and percussion, opened American composer David Conte’s ‘Invocation and Dance’. From a beautifully restrained beginning, echoing the opening words of the text, this work gradually increases its momentum, becoming more and more urgent, before ultimately leading us to a sense of joyous acceptance. Conte wrote this work in 1986 specifically for the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. He took as his text lines from ‘When Lilacs First in the Dooryard Bloom’d’, an elegy from that most iconic American poet, Walt Whitman, in which the poet ponders death and its integral relationship to nature. Written in 1865, the poem grieves the death of Abraham Lincoln, and it’s a lament of sorts for the many soldiers who were killed in the American Civil War. But Conte also had in mind the many men who had died, and were continuing to die, during the AIDS epidemic. In the poem, Whitman’s use of birdsong imagery represents the realisation that death is an inextricable part of life, part of the cycle of nature, and shouldn’t be feared. He celebrates life, and so Conte’s piece ends with jubilation, something you could hear in the voices of the choristers. This was a most enjoyable work, and I especially enjoyed the use of vibraphone and marimba.

‘Dharriwaa – Narran Lakes Dreaming’, with words and music by Yuwaalaraay composer (and author) Nardi Simpson was next on the program. Written for voices only, it’s a powerful work, beginning with a lilting fluid melody, reflecting the flow of the Dharriwaa, which only comes into flow when the Narran, Barwon and Namoi rivers overflow. The composer speaks of the land’s transformation when this happens, and tells us it’s the ‘heart of all we are as Yuwaalaraay people’. Once again, there is the image of birds, this time soaring above the water, watching over the land. ‘Dharriwaa – Narran Lakes Dreaming’ is a hauntingly spiritual composition, more so because parts of the text are spoken in language by Simpson’s nieces and nephew, in combination with the choir, which is singing the words to life.

The third work was Paul Stanhope’s ‘I am Martuwarra’, a wonderful choral work featuring the Sydney Children’s Choir, alongside the Sydney Chamber Choir. The evocative text is by poet and librettist Steve Hawke. Martuwarra is the Bunuba word for the Fitzroy River, and the composition takes the form of a dialogue between the river and the people who live and rely on it, each verse reflecting the various aspects of the landscape and the river. The work opens with tinkling percussion and piano, and the high pure voices of the children’s choir. The harmonies are just gorgeous. Percussion represents the rhythm of the land, of the seasons, of falling rain. The percussionists were joined at one stage with the children tapping stones together, a most effective sound tool. Goosebumps prickled my skin during the verse ‘Mighty river/Bursting from the limestone range/My waters spread wide as the rains/They fall without cease on the Nyikina plains’. That combination of choir and musicians was electric. And once again, there are birds: the bounteous river attracts ‘a million birds [that] sing loud and joyous … singing a river chorus’. What an uplifting work this is. Paul Stanhope himself was in the audience at this performance, and he looked delighted by the performance. Can’t do better than that!

And so ended the first half of the concert. Now, the main event.

Epic. Earthy. Lusty. Joyous. Ferocious. In your face. Carl Orff’s 1937 masterpiece ‘Carmina Burana’ absolutely demands and holds your full attention, as I discovered when I first heard it some 35 or more years ago. It doesn’t matter how often you hear it, it still has the power to enthrall. With text taken from a thirteenth-century codex containing individual poems in Latin, vernacular German and French, and music composed to rouse even the most languid soul, this cantata has become – through film, video and even advertising – one of the most recognisable ‘classical’ works in popular culture. Few people will not have heard the powerful opening (and closing), ‘O Fortuna’, that addresses the waxing and waning of our fates in an unpredictable world.

The medieval poems speak of spring, of love, tenderness, longing, of life’s pleasures, of the whims of fortune. Orff celebrates these with magisterial music marked by insistent pulsating rhythms, and the generous use of ostinato motifs. Normally scored for orchestra, this performance uses the Wilhelm Killmayer version for two pianos and percussion, which took nothing away from the experience. Although, if I’m honest, there was a brief moment when I missed the fullness of an orchestra, which was just before the movement ‘Swaz hie gat umbe’. But this was a fleeting feeling, quickly dispelled, as the percussion, pianos and voices portrayed through their artistry, the frenzy of dancers whirling around the floor.

The rich baritone voice of Simon Meadows brought gravitas to the ‘Primo vere’, which by the way, celebrates among other things, the song of the nightingale. (Birds are a recurring motif in this program!). Across all parts that were his, Meadows was superb. Just to single out a couple: the falsetto moments in ‘Cours d’amours’; and ‘In taberna’, where listeners believed him when he sang that he was ‘more eager for the pleasures of the flesh, than for salvation’. Indeed, the entire ‘tavern’ section was fabulously alive, the chorus inhabiting the characters most decisively.

Russell Harcourt, that most wonderful tenor/countertenor, had only one part to play, that of the roasting swan bemoaning his fate while he is being turned on the spit. He sang it to perfection. The men’s chorus echoed the misery of the swan.

In all her parts, soprano Celeste Lazarenko’s clarity and expression were on full display. Her ‘Dulcissime’ was dazzling, and in ‘Cours d’amours’, she gloriously sang of lusty courtship. Here, the children’s choir responded by singing of the bitter fate of a girl without a lover. Young children singing of sexual ardour is somewhat jarring, which is, of course, exactly how the composer wanted it. That juxtaposition of innocence against blatant carnality is incredibly potent.

One of my favourite sections of ‘Carmina Burana’ is ‘Tempus est iocundum’ – the joyful time of experiencing first love. The children’s choir sang the ‘Oh, oh, oh, totus floreo …’ with crystal conviction. Throughout, the children were in fine form, singing with great gusto.

In a nutshell, everyone on stage was exultant, and when the work came to its dramatic ending – repeating its stirring beginning – the audience was equally affected. ‘Carmina Burana’ was not well received when it was first performed back in 1937, critics dismissing it for various reasons, but the immediacy and sheer audacity of the composition coupled with today’s polished performance, meant it was given a standing ovation. A well-deserved standing ovation. Director and conductor Sam Allchurch should be mightily proud. Bravo.

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