Taken from the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs website

This Easter, we offer you a concert that embraces the uplifting energy and the healing power of choral singing.

Fauré’s Requiem is paired with a revival of John Peterson’s Shadows and Light, an SPC commission inspired by both the texts of the requiem mass and the headlines of September 11, 2001. But the key to the program is not death but rest (requiem) and light.

Both works play to the virtuosity and youthful sound of VOX and Chamber Singers. Shadows and Light features Peterson’s animated rhythms and attractive blending of musical styles – traditional and popular – in music that reminds us we need shadow in order to ‘see the light’.

Fauré’s Requiem stands apart from its more theatrical counterparts. Instead of fire-and-brimstone drama, it’s beautiful and consoling – a ‘lullaby of death’. Experience Fauré’s original vision with its intimate use of instruments and voices, from the drama of the Libera Me to the ethereal purity of the Pie Jesu and a finale that will take you to paradise.

Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings is the cathartic interlude in this profoundly moving concert.

Thursday 28 March at 7pm
Sydney Town Hall

This performance will run for 1 hour and 15 minutes. No interval.

PROGRAM

John Peterson Shadows and Light
Samuel BARBER Adagio for Strings
Gabriel FAURÉ Requiem
(1893 version edited by John Rutter)

ARTISTS

Elizabeth Scott conductor
Chloe Lankshear soprano
Andrew Goodwin tenor
Andrew O’Connor baritone
VOX and Chamber Singers
Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra