Small Wonders Deliver Purity, Purpose And Joy

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday May 7, 2007

Reviewed by Peter McCallum

HERITAGE IN SONG

Sydney Children's Choir

City Recital Hall, May 5

WHEN a child shows you a picture you suspend critical judgement, because the whole point is not in the draftsmanship but in the showing and in the trust that that showing shows. The only problem in this regard with Lyn Williams's Sydney Children's Choir is that you might overlook how good the draftsmanship - or in this case the singing - actually is.

Just how good could be sampled up close in the closing tableau of Resonance, a multimedia creation of stories, music, pictures and bright lights by Williams, the choir, composers Paul Jarman and Stephen Leek and the director, Andrew Walsh. Each choir member brought down a handmade diorama in a satchel-sized box, lit by a tiny light, representing a small scene in a young life. As they showed these and sang the last song, first in a free canon and then in a euphoniously balanced close, one naturally looked appreciative.

But one couldn't help noticing the unforced purity of sound and trueness of pitch in the individual voices as they proceeded past to create a delicately luminous web around the hall.

Resonance was built up from workshops in writing, music and art and told family stories from five of the choristers with the remaining ones printed on a program insert.

They told of war, slavery, divided homes and death, all of which had somehow led to the staid normality the concert optimistically enshrined. With projected images on a large screen and synchronised tracking spotlights, the event was somewhere between a school concert and an opening ceremony spectacular and, if anything, risked being over-produced. But chorister Corey Kirk's contribution, a well-shaped song, Searching, pointed to just how far the legacy of this choir might travel.

The first half was preceded by a soundscape depicting drills, traffic, and other symbols of what the Czech writer, Milan Kundera, called our Age of Total Ugliness. This was a preface for Belonging, sung against beautiful projected collages from a picture book by Jeannie Baker showing the progressive greening of an urban scene viewed from a child's window. Then came Hooray for Fish with a virtuosic piano part of mock pomposity and exuberant singing from the Minisingers in striped and spotted T-shirts, providing about as much fun as any of us had had since our fifth birthday party.

© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald

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