Sydney Chamber Choir is passionate about choral music and its unique ability to celebrate and reflect upon the stores of our past, present and future.
We love to travel deep inside the music to meet the composers and bring their vision alive in sound. We reach back to explore the masterpieces of the Baroque and the Renaissance, while also championing the music of our own time and place, regularly commissioning works by established and emerging Australian composers. In recent years, the choir has premiered new works by Brenda Gifford, Ella Macens, Brooke Shelley, Paul Stanhope and Joe Twist.
Formed in 1975, we have been honoured to work with guest conductors such as Carl Crossin, Roland Peelman, Elizabeth Scott and Brett Weymark, as well as our three previous directors, Nicholas Routley, Paul Stanhope and the late Richard Gill AO. We collaborate with leading Australian instrumentalists, ensembles and singers, including the Australian Haydn Ensemble, the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, Andrew Goodwin, David Greco, Slava Grigoryan, Synergy Percussion, Joseph Tawadros and The Muffat Collective. We also enjoy more unconventional partnerships, including concerts with the Hilltop Hoods, The Idea of North and the Sydney Mardi Gras Community Choir.
The choir appeared at the Sydney Festival in 2021 and the Canberra International Music Festival in 2022, and we tour regularly in regional NSW, most recently to Goulburn for the Hume Chamber Music Festival. We have sung in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the UK, and in 2009 the choir was a prizewinner in the Tolosa International Choral Competition in Spain.
Our performances have been broadcast across the country on ABC Classic and on Fine Music 102.5, and our CD recordings are available on the ABC Classics and Tall Poppies labels. Our most recent album, Lux Aeterna, featuring music of Paul Stanhope, has been acclaimed as ‘worthy of the highest accolade’ (Fine Music).