Dietrich Bonhoeffer Project

Name: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Project
Start: 2025-02-23T15:00:00+1100
End: 2025-02-23T16:30:00+1100
Location: Big Schoolroom, Sydney Grammar School (Enter via Stanley Street gate)

Sun, 23 Feb 2025, 3pm - 4:30pm AEDT

Big Schoolroom, Sydney Grammar School (Enter via Stanley Street gate)

darlinghurst, australia

Sydney Chamber Choir

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Event description

Ensemble Nobiles (Germany)
Sydney Chamber Choir
Sam Allchurch | Conductor

2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two and the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an influential Lutheran theologian. He was arrested by the Nazis in 1943 and executed on 9 April 1945.

In this concert, we collaborate with the award-winning German male-voice quintet Ensemble Nobiles to present a thought-provoking musical tribute to Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Ensemble Nobiles has commissioned composers from Australia, Germany, New Zealand, the UK and the USA to set to music texts written by Bonhoeffer while imprisoned, interleaved between the movements of a new Mass setting by Paul Heller, a member of Ensemble Nobiles and former member of the St Thomas' Boys Choir in Leipzig.

We give the world premiere of the complete work in Sydney before joining the Gewandhaus Choir as well as choirs from Melbourne and the UK for a performance of this landmark work in the famous Gewandhaus in Leipzig in May.

This is deeply affecting music that speaks to the importance of our shared humanity.

Program

Paul Heller Mass Dietrich B.
Matthew Harris (USA) Morning Prayer
Alec Roth (UK) Die Ruhe der Nacht (The Peace of the Night)
David Hamilton (NZ) Heiliger Geist (Holy Spirit)
Sandra Milliken (Australia) Herr Jesus Christus (Lord Jesus Christ)
Manfred Schenker (Germany) Von guten Mächten (With all the powers of good)

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Sydney Chamber Choir

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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, Harry Sdraulig, Brooke Shelley, Paul Stanhope, Joe Twist and Elizabeth Younan. In both 2022 and 2023, the APRA-AMCOS Award for Choral Work of the Year went to works written for and premiered by us: Paul Stanhope's Requiem, and Heather Percy's Three Night Songs.

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 ensembles and instrumentalists, including the Australian Haydn Ensemble, the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, 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 2023 Adelaide Chamber Music Festival, the 2022 Canberra International Music Festival and the 2021 Sydney Festival, and we tour regularly in regional NSW, most recently to Goulburn in September 2024. 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. In May 2025, we will return to Europe to give concerts in Berlin, Hannover and Leipzig.

Our performances have been broadcast across the country on ABC Classic and on 2MBS Fine Music Sydney, and our CD recordings are available on the ABC Classic and Tall Poppies labels, and via download and streaming services.

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