Liz Anderson talks to David Marr
about Agatha della Pietà
11 August 2026
slide show created by Alex Hedt
with permission from ABC Radio
Agatha’s Cantata, Vivaldi’s Gloria
is at the Scots’ Church, Melbourne
on Saturday 12 September at 5PM
Watch/Listen Category: Video
Gloria, by Antonio Vivaldi
This is the opening of Vivaldi’s ever-popular Gloria, written while Vivaldi was acting as Maestro di Coro at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice.
Agatha’s Cantata, composed by one of the orphans living at the Pietà during Vivaldi’s tenure there is a perfect companion piece.
Book now for Agatha’s Cantata, Vivaldi’s Gloria
Saturday 5 September at 3PM – Sterling Place Community Centre, DUNKELD
Saturday 12 September at 5PM – Scots’ Church, MELBOURNE
Watch the premiere of Agatha’s Cantata on Australian Digital Concert Hall
Second Movement, Cantata by Agatha della Pietà
The ACC is joined by the String Ensemble of Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello,
directed by Douglas Lawrence
Filmed live in concert at the Pisani Palace, Venice 16 July 2024
Experience this lost cantata live in concert
Buy your tickets now for Agatha’s Cantata, Vivaldi’s Gloria
in DUNKELD on 5 September and in MELBOURNE on 12 September
Cameras – Bruce Inglis and Rebecca Lena; Sound – Simone Corelli; Production/editing, Rebecca Lena
Experience the ACC in a live performance …
Since 2007, the ACC has given 125 concerts in Europe and many more in Australia. This program (and the new CD that goes with it) brings together everyone’s favourite encores: music that makes you laugh, sigh, swoon, cry, sits you on the edge of your seat, or sets your spine tingling. Read more…Encores 2026
Fourth movement, Cantata by Agatha della Pietà
Premiere, filmed live in concert at Palazzo Pisani, Venice, 16 July 2024
Reconstruction by Elizabeth Anderson
Australian Chamber Choir
with the Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello String Ensemble
directed by Douglas Lawrence
Buy your tickets now for Agatha’s Cantata, Vivaldi’s Gloria
in DUNKELD on 5 September and in MELBOURNE on 12 September
Cameras – Bruce Inglis and Rebecca Lena; Sound – Simone Corelli; Production/editing, Rebecca Lena
Fifth movement, Cantata by Agatha della Pietà
Premiere, filmed live in concert at Palazzo Pisani, Venice, 16 July 2024
Reconstruction by Elizabeth Anderson
Australian Chamber Choir, Kate McBride and Katherine Lieschke – Sopranos
with the Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello String Ensemble
directed by Douglas Lawrence
Buy your tickets now for Agatha’s Cantata, Vivaldi’s Gloria
in DUNKELD on 5 September and in MELBOURNE on 12 September
Cameras – Bruce Inglis and Rebecca Lena; Sound – Simone Corelli; Production/editing, Rebecca Lena
The Cantata – ‘Ecce nunc’, Finale, by Agatha della Pietà
Premiere, filmed live in concert at Palazzo Pisani, Venice, 16 July 2024
Reconstruction by Elizabeth Anderson
Australian Chamber Choir, Kate McBride – Soprano
with the Conservatorio Benedetto Marcello String Ensemble
directed by Douglas Lawrence
A documentary, entitled Agatha’s Story, coming to SBS TV on 11 August 2026, tells of the discovery and reconstruction of this work – the only surviving composition by an orphan of the Ospedale della Pietà – and the ACC’s premiere performances of it.
Cameras – Bruce Inglis and Rebecca Lena; Sound – Simone Corelli; Production/editing, Rebecca Lena
Abendlied, by Josef Rheinberger
A C C 8 directed by Douglas Lawrence
Filmed live in concert
from Mandeville Hall Toorak, June 2020
by 5stream.com
Book your seat now to see this live
as part of the ACC’s Encores program
Nimrod, by Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
‘Nimrod’, from the Enigma Variations Op.36
Premiered in London, 19 June, 1899
Arranged by Elizabeth Anderson for 8-part choir
Premiered in Melbourne, 24 June, 2018
Filmed in concert by Filmoo.com.au
Sound courtesy of ABC Classic FM
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Middle Park
24 June, 2018
See this live as part of the ACC’s Great Romantic Voices in Dunkeld on Saturday 13 June or in Middle Park on Sunday 21 June, or watch on Australian Digital Concert Hall.
Power in Stillness, by Christine McCombe
In July 2024, the Australian Chamber Choir gave eleven performances in Europe. This performance was presented by the Swiss international festival known as ‘Ceresio Estate’, a series of summer concerts in churches around Lake Lugano. European Audiences were fascinated by this new work by Christine McCombe.
Power in Stillness was commissioned by the ACC, and premiered in 2022. In writing this work, Christine was inspired by the concept of Dadirri. Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann, artist, tribal elder and Principal of St Francis Xavier School, Daly River in Australia’s far north, explains that the word, from the Ngan’gikurunggurr language, describes “deep listening and silent awareness”.
Christine McCombe’s Power in Stillness is structured to focus the audience’s attention on the silences within the music. The work features on the ACC’s 2024 CD release, Gold.
from the Missa Aeterna Christi Munera, by Palestrina
Agnus Dei II (excerpt), from the Missa Aeterna Christi Munera, by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Recorded live in concert by Move Records, 24 November, 2019
This work appears on the ACC’s Keys to Heaven CD
Images shown are of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome (the favourite church of the late Pope Francis, and now his resting place), where Palestrina sang from the age of eleven as a choir boy and was director of the choir from 1551 to ’66.
Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, by Michael Praetorius
This work features in our forthcoming Baroque Christmas program
This work can also be found on our Baroque Christmas CD
directed by Douglas Lawrence
Filmed live in concert at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Middle Park
by Filmoo, Sunday 9 December 2018. Sound by Move Records
Triste Noel, by Henry Handel Richardson
Henry Handel Richardson (1870–1946). Famous for her novel The Getting of Wisdom, Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson was born in Melbourne in 1870. During and after her period of study at the Leipzig Conservatory of Music, she was a prolific composer. This work sets a poem by the Massachusetts-based Louise Imogen Guiney.
Filmed live in concert at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Middle Park, 8 December 2024, by 5stream.
Ein Kind geborn zu Bethlehem, by Michael Praetorius
directed by Douglas Lawrence
Filmed live in concert at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Middle Park
by Filmoo, Sunday 9 December 2018. Sound by Move Records
Singt und klingt, by Michael Praetorius
This cheeky piece by Praetorius features in our Baroque Christmas program and on the CD of the same name.
Buy the CD Buy a Ticket to the Concert Learn More
Australian Chamber Choir
Directed by Douglas Lawrence
Filmed live in concert, 9 December 2018
at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Middle Park
by Filmoo. Sound by Move records
Image: Fra Angelico, Nativity (1440-41), fresco, St Mark’s Monastery, Florence
Vom Himmel hoch – From heaven on high, by Martin Luther
Words and melody attributed to Martin Luther
Harmonised by Adam Gumpelzhaimer
Directed by Douglas Lawrence
Filmed live in concert at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Middle Park
by Filmoo on Sunday 9 December 2018. Sound by Move records