Red Dirt Hymns

A living songbook more than four years in the making, Andrew Ford’s hymnal brings together the words of sixteen contemporary Australian writers – poets, essayists, and folksingers. Born in a time of fire and darkness, grief, and loss, and then fragile, tender hope, Red Dirt Hymns are songs of awe and praise, dedicated not to a god, but to the land.

Red Dirt Hymns is performed by the ever-daring voices of Luminescence Chamber Singers alongside with two rising stars: Hilary Geddes (electric guitar), 2021 Freedman Jazz Fellow and lead guitarist of Triple J favourites The Buoys, and category-defying cellist Freya Schack-Arnott. Songs that span art music, folk song, country ballad, and Aussie rock, unfold to the evocative imagery of Sammy Hawker, whose art is created within the fabric of country itself: saltwater, limestone and eucalypt.

From Ellen van Neerven’s dark clouds to John Kinsella’s abundant gardens, Red Dirt Hymns does what a hymnal is meant to do: it draws us closer – to each other, and to the light and shade of our wide brown land.

We will also be joined by students from Moss Vale High School Choirs for this performance.