On The Wings Of Wonder

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday December 16, 2006

Reviewed by Harriet Cunningham

VOICES OF ANGELS

City Recital Hall, December 13

THE keen, focused young voices paraded down the aisles of City Recital Hall, dressed in choirboy red and holding candles, for the opening processional of Benjamin Britten's A Ceremony of Carols. It was a traditional start to a refreshing mix of Christmas song old and new.

The Senior Choir members cut their teeth on the challenging music of Britten earlier this year with The Children's Crusade. His A Ceremony of Carols is a much less confronting affair, but tricky nevertheless, and the choristers showed their mettle in the spooky This little babe and fiercely joyful Deo Gracias. Harpist Genevieve Lang provided an atmospheric accompaniment, and soloists Alexandra Oomens and Clare Kenny sang with unforced clarity.

After the Britten came the Christopher Gordon Choir, teenage boys singing in the tenor and baritone register. Although their still-forming voices were relatively small, it was a beautifully soft timbre, perfect for John Rutter's elegiac Blow, blow, though winter wind, and they performed John Fogarty's Down in the Manger with good humour and growing confidence. It is great to hear these choristers who, but for this kind of ensemble, would fall off the treble cliff into a choral wasteland until their 20s.

For the second half the angels came out in force. Angel Place lived up to its name, with choristers on every level and in every direction. The Bells of Angels, a soundscape created by artistic director Lyn Williams and the choir, made the air ring, and in Michael Bojesen's Eternity, my six-year-old colleague was captivated to be surrounded on all sides by earthly angels who looked remarkably like real children.

Williams directed the choir and fine orchestra with her usual infectious enthusiasm, drawing out sounds of the utmost concentration and accuracy.

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

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