Sydney University Graduate Choir

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.

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”

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.

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**

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.