the most beautiful a capella singing possible
Australian Chamber Choir: Renaissance Requiem
By Julie McErlain, 21st August 2025
It is always a great joy and spiritual inspiration for audiences to hear the most beautiful qualities of the human voice in solo and choral settings in the special enriching acoustic of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Here is where the Australian Chamber Choir creates perfection in pitch, tone and harmony bringing us the most beautiful a capella singing possible, year after year, always creating a rarely experienced purity and depth of repertoire with the finest emotional connection and expression. Extensive historical research by ACC directors Douglas Lawrence and Elizabeth Anderson always brings us the most excellent program notes for their meticulously sculptured and thematically conceived programs. “Renaissance Requiem” challenged our emotional musical experience as we embraced music from a European civilization marked by a revival of Classical learning and wisdom in historic settings of parts of the Requiem Mass, alongside a contemporary Australian setting by Gordon Kerry, the composer himself present and warmly welcomed in the audience.
Today, Assistant Artistic Director Elizabeth Anderson led the 16 singers to the performing space under the beautiful church dome, which created an exceptionally fine prolonged resonance and tonal fullness for voices. In this wondrous venue, choristers are guaranteed a magical surround sound and enrichment, especially in final cadences. From the silence, Thomas Tomkins’ solemn 17th century anthem, “When David heard that Absalom was slain”, was textbook purity, deeply affective, with sopranos rising to the heavens in intensely strong crescendos. A beautiful eight-part setting of “O Magnum Mysterium” by Morten Lauridsen (1994) expressed a profound mystical and reverential quality, bringing the audience to be mostly immersed in the sound with eyes closed.
With the program content divided then in two parts, REQUIEM SEQUENCE PART ONE gave us seamless, superbly blended entries in the six-part polyphonic Introitus from Missa pro Defunctis, by Tomas Luis de Victoria (1583). We then began the alternating sequence of Gordon Kerry’s Missa pro Defunctis (2024), with its beautiful Introit with widely spaced and luminous melodic intervals, impressive moments being the ACC’s big crescendos and the work of solo tenor, Metehan Pektas. The ensemble then brought a contrasting forward movement and bright, sweet vocal tone in Tallis’ harmonious sacred anthem “Out from the Deep”. Kerry’s substantial Offertorium was a fine and most creative setting of a complex text, with a freedom in rhythm, energy and emotive changes. Interesting unison lines would break into shorter fragments and sopranos given inventive activity, with soloist Kate McBride taking an austere solo line to an unfinished space.
Thomas Morley’s “I Heard a Voice From Heaven” was indeed short and sweet, allowing the next parts from Kerry’s Requiem to come forth. His unusual Sanctus and Benedictus showed much variety in range and scope in strong rhythmic settings of the text, and ACC produced a resplendent, strong and shining tone in “Hosanna in Excelsis”. William Byrd’s “Ave Verum Corpus” was a musical moment of personal tender and gentle reflection – “Have Mercy On Me, Amen”.
REQUIEM SEQUENCE PART 2 continued the alternating flow of parts, with Kerry’s Agnus Dei growing from gentleness and beauty to affirmative, beseeching and imploring tones with surprising dynamic contrasts. Structured and gently hymn-like, Orlando Gibbons’ “Almighty and Everlasting God” then led to Kerry’s Communio: Lux Aeterna with its sustained rising and falling lines, luminous texture, the softest “Grant them eternal rest” contrasting with a more strident “let perpetual light shine upon them”. We were given fine lively declamatory passages and imitative polyphony in Schutz’ six-part motet “Selig sind die Toten” (Blessed are the dead) and a dance-like instrumental-style flow for the lighter text in Aleotti’s “Ego Floss Campi” (I am the flower of the field). Still, motionless, the audience was engrossed and absorbed as we moved on to Kerry’s Antiphon: In Paradisum. In more contemporary harmonies the choirs of angels led us into paradise, and magnificently-toned final chords acknowledged eternal rest.
By comparison, “Weep you no more sad fountains” was lightly secular, breathtakingly beautiful with an abundance of lyrical sweetness as we expect from its popular composer, John Dowland. Thomas Tomkins’ sacred anthem “O pray for the peace of Jerusalem”, while composed in 1626, was as timely and relevant as ever, gently leading into the closing work, Kerry’s Responsorium, a most solemn, respectful and grand part, with bell-like tones from the singers as the text reflected on the prayer and hope for resurrection and redemption.
What a splendid performance, even with the chill of mortality in this unheated venue on a wintry day! This very beautiful ACC program was deeply affective and artistically superb, with Elizabeth Anderson admirably conducting the full program as Douglas Lawrence was not able to attend; but there was more: a delightful celebratory five-part motet, “Ascendit Deus” by Peter Phillips, with the ACC delivering brightly bouncing Alleluias in a strong orchestral style.
The concert is available on ADCH and ACC streaming.
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Julie McErlain reviewed “Renaissance Requiem”, performed by the Australian Chamber Choir at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Middle Park on August 17, 2025.