Sydney University Graduate Choir
The Sydney University Graduate Choir is dedicated to high quality performances of great choral music by the established masters and by contemporary composers.
Under the leadership of our Music Director, Christopher Bowen the core of the Choir’s activity is its regular concerts in the Great Hall of the University as well as the Centennial Hall, Sydney Town Hall.
REVERBERATIONS - Lachner and Schubert
Sunday 10 August 2025
Schubert’s Mirjams Siegesgesang (Miriam’s Song of Victory) is a tour de force composed in the year of his death at 31 in 1828. It is one of his most demanding roles for a soprano soloist accompanied by a large chorus and orchestra, as Miriam celebrates her brother Moses leading the Israelites through the Red Sea to freedom. The influences of Handel and Beethoven echo throughout this dramatically triumphal cantata, orchestrated by Lachner as a ‘labour of love’ after the composer’s tragically early death.
While Franz Lachner’s fame has not equalled that of his great friend, here we offer a rare opportunity to experience his hauntingly beautiful Requiem in F Minor. Composed in 1856 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, Lachner’s only Mass for the Dead is a romantic masterpiece. Paying homage to both Mozart and Schubert, it was widely lauded as ‘most perfect of its kind after Mozart’s Requiem’.
Great Hall, University of Sydney
Bach St John's Passion
Saturday 5 April 2025
We return to JS Bach's glorious St John's Passion for Easter 2025. This grand oratorio, one of Bach's masterworks, takes us through the Easter story lifts our heart with its great fugues and contemplative chorales
St Thomas' Anglican Church
Mendelssohn Elijah Op.70
Sunday 3 November 2024
Mendelssohn’s Elijah, the powerful and dramatic masterpiece about the Old Testament prophet Elijah, is the perfect finale for our 2024 concert series. Experience
the drama between Elijah and Queen Jezebel, the contest between Baal and God and the vivid imagery of Elijah’s ascent to heaven in a fiery chariot. The work was an instant triumph. While strongly influenced by Bach’s and Handel’s oratorios, its lyricism and use of orchestral and choral colours reflect Mendelssohn‘s own great genius.
Great Hall, University of Sydney
Ultimate Baroque
Sunday 11 August 2024
Our 2024 August concert will transport you to the end of the Baroque era at the Royal courts of Dresden in Saxony and London in England. The opulent Missa Ultima in G minor with brilliant, extended trumpet parts is the Opus ultimus of the 84-year-old Johann Adolf Hasse, who for almost three decades dominated musical life at the Saxon Court of Dresden and was regarded as the musical idol of his era. At the same time, Handel who composed his triumphant Dettingen Te Deum for the Victory at the Battle of Dettingen against the French army in 1743, dominated musical life at the English court.
We believe that this will be the first ever performance of Hasse’s Missa Ultima in Australia.
Great Hall, University of Sydney
The Great Ma(y)tinee
Sunday 5 May 2024
We are opening our 2024 concert season with our Great Ma(y)tinee concert. This relaxed and varied concert celebrates the joy of choral singing and has become a favourite of choir and audience alike.
This year’s lively program features the popular Misa Criolla by the Argentine composer Ariel Ramírez that combines the Spanish language with Argentine and Latin dance rhythms. This mass is contrasted with Schubert’s triumphant Mirjams Siegesgesang (Song of Victory), a choral ballad on the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt; also choral works by Brahms and Schumann, both based on the central European folk tradition. Relax, listen and enjoy exquisite music – and be prepared to tap your feet!
Ashfield Boys High School
Sydney Sings...(R) Hadyn's The Creation
Sunday 12 November 2023
Josef Hadyn's masterwork "The Creation' (Die Schöpfung) is Sydney University Graduate Choir's Sydney Sings® event this year at the Sydney Town Hall on Sunday 12th November.
With its monumental choruses and imaginative arias cemented Haydn’s fame around the world and depicts the creation of the world as described in the Book of Genesis and Milton’s Paradise Lost. It is a glorious celebration of the wonders of life. The fusion of exuberance, originality, classical elegance and intellectual power was immediately hailed everywhere and will also touch today’s listeners.
Sydney Town Hall
Handel - Esther 1720 version HWV50a
Sunday 13 August 2023
Our August concert will carry you away to the ancient court of King Xerxes of Persia, in Handel’s magnificent first
ever oratorio Esther. Follow the story of Esther, a Jewish orphan who wins the affection of the King and becomes
the Queen of Persia, unmasking the treachery of Prime Minister Haman to save the Jewish people from a horrible
fate.
This landmark work was so successful, it marked the birth of the English oratorio and includes beautiful
dramatic and lyrical movements, ending with a grandiose final chorus only Handel could have written.
Great Hall, University of Sydney
The Great...Ma(y)tinee
Sunday 7 May 2023
Our Great Ma(y)tinee concert opens our 2023 concert series.
This relaxed and varied concert celebrates the joy of choral singing and is quickly becoming a favourite of choir and audience alike. This year’s eclectic program features the captivating Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae by the Baroque composer Durante and Zelenka’s beautiful Miserere. These two baroque masterworks are combined with the contemporary masterpiece Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, a new moving work by Christopher Bowen and several other great works.
Enjoy, relax and listen to simply good music from many ages...
Ashfield Boys High School
Sydney Sings...(R) Imagine - Redfern Oratorio/ Ode to Joy
Sunday 13 November 2022
Sydney University Graduate Choir will once again present a Sydney Sings® event this year at the Sydney Town Hall on Sunday 13th November. Join us for the world premiere of The Redfern Oratorio composed by Christopher Bowen with the libretto by Pamela Traynor and commissioned by Dr. Robyn Williams AO. The concert will also feature the mighty “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.
The choir will be joined by a symphony orchestra and professional soloists Amy Moore (soprano), Ashlyn Tymms (mezzo soprano), Nicholas Jones (tenor) and Adrian Tamburini (bass).
Inspired by Paul Keating’s significant 1992 Redfern Speech The Redfern Oratorio imagines a shared future with Indigenous Australians and a longing for reconciliation. It also echoes the hopes and aspirations of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.
Sydney Town Hall
In Paradisum - Faure Requiem and Schubert Stabat Mater
Sunday 14 August 2022
Leave the hectic world behind and immerse yourself in the heavenly music of Fauré’s peaceful Requiem and Schubert’s gentle Stabat Mater.
Fauré’s tranquil Requiem is dominated by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest without the terrifying description of the Last Judgement. Schubert’s beautiful Stabat Mater is based on a free German adaptation by the German poet Klopstock. It places Christ’s love and the promise to “inherit the joy of paradise”
Great Hall, University of Sydney
Singing On.... Sydney University Graduate Choir
Between Sunday 8 May 2022 and Sunday 5 June 2022
2021 has passed and the Grads are still “Singing On”.
This year’s program features a medley of songs from Bernstein’s timeless masterpiece West Side Story, and Beethoven’s Gellert Lieder, arranged for four-part choir by Christopher Bowen. It also includes Fauré’s famous Cantique de Jean Racine, works by Brahms, Schubert and Bowen, and a newly commissioned work by the young Sydney composer Courtney Cousins.
Fort Street High School
In Paradisum - Faure Requiem and Schubert Stabat Mater
Sunday 15 August 2021
Leave the hectic world behind and immerse yourself in the heavenly music of Fauré’s peaceful Requiem and Schubert’s gentle Stabat Mater. Enjoy an uplifting and comforting afternoon.
**Tickets Discover NSW voucher eligible until 31 July 2021. Maximum one voucher per transaction**
Pitt Street Uniting Church
Singing On
Sunday 2 May 2021
2020 has passed and in 2021 the Grads are “Singing On”.
Our first concert of the year sees the choir performing for the first time at the historic Fort Street High School in Petersham. A varied program will see pieces by Beethoven, Fauré, Saint Saëns, Brahms and others, as we return to the joy of choral singing!
Fort Street High School
Sydney Sings...(TM) Mendelssohn’s Elijah
Sunday 8 November 2020
Mendelssohn’s Elijah, the powerful and dramatic masterpiece about the Old Testament prophet Elijah, is the perfect finale for our 2020 concert series. Experience the drama between Elijah and Queen Jezebel, the contest between Baal and God and the vivid imagery of Elijah’s ascent to heaven in a fiery chariot. While strongly influenced by Bach’s and Handel’s oratorios, its lyricism and use of orchestral and choral colours reflect Mendelssohn‘s own great genius.
Sydney Town Hall
Rheinberger Star of Bethlehem
Sunday 8 December 2019
The final concert of the Choir’s 2019 season features a rarely performed masterwork from the German Romantic period which deserves to be heard more often: Rheinberger's lyrical and very personal Star of Bethlehem, based on words by the composer’s poet wife and presenting a heart-warming and joyful portrayal of the Christmas story.
Great Hall
Sydney Sings...(TM) Brahms' A German Requiem
Sunday 10 November 2019
Our 2019 Sydney Sings...TM concert presents Brahms’ A German Requiem, a timeless work, full of comfort and hope. Not based on the traditional Latin text, this Requiem focuses rather on the living, beginning with the words ‘Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted’. Brahms himself admitted that he would gladly have named the work ‘A Human Requiem’. Our Guest Choir will join us once again for this concert, which will also include Brahms’ Tragic Overture.
Sydney Town Hall
Puccini Messa di Gloria and 2019 Joan Carden Award
Sunday 11 August 2019
Our August concert features Puccini’s youthful Messa di Gloria. This work, written as a graduation exercise, already reveals much of the mastery of his mature operatic works. It is thus a fitting work for a concert featuring the finalists of the 2019 Joan Carden Award competition. These exceptional young singers, at the beginning of their careers, will demonstrate their talents for judges and audience alike as they perform famous opera arias by the great masters.
Great Hall
Gossec Requiem Mass
Sunday 5 May 2019
he Choir’s 2019 concert season opens with Gossec’s ground-breaking Messe des mortswhich made the composer famous overnight. This inventive work was truly ahead of its time, and is said to have influenced the requiems of both Mozart and Berlioz. Who had ever thought to use a ‘distant wind orchestra’ in a Requiem before? Born in a small village in what is now Belgium, Gossec spent all of his successful musical career in Paris.
Great Hall