Founded in 1977, the Oriana Chorale has long hit the sweet spot for Canberrans who like to sing.

An auditioned group of professional and amateur musicians, the chorale is now directed by composer-singer-conductor Dan Walker, who follows Oriana’s mission to enrich the cultural life of the capital through both a cappella and accompanied singing.

Now, with the chorale’s 50th anniversary coming up in a few years, it has announced its inaugural Emerging Composer in Residence Program open to all Australian citizens who are emerging composers.

Oriana has a long history of programming and commissioning new work from well-established Australian composers, but this program aims to assist an emerging composer to start creating a body of work, with guaranteed performances and live recordings.

The driving force behind the commission is Patrick Baker, a bass singer, the choir librarian and back before covid, a founding member of Luminescence Chambers Singers.

During the pandemic he took a step back from singing but missed “the good communal experiences, the social aspects” too much, so joined up again.

Many people, Baker believes, tend to forget that music is a living tradition, not one frozen in time.

“I feel that here in Australia we have too few opportunities to sing music written by Australians,” he says, “most of what we sing is by dead composers, but singing is a living tradition so we need to become champions of work by living composers.”

The current size of the chorale is about 40 members and the chosen composer will be expected to write pieces of 3-5 minutes each for the three concerts next year, with a total fee of $1000 for each successfully completed piece. As well, Oriana will endeavour to provide a travel stipend and billet if the selected composer resides outside of the Canberra region.

They could be in written in four parts or divided into more parts but that will somewhat depend on what director Walker’s plans are for next year.

The decision will be made by a panel consisting of Baker, Walker, longtime Oriana member Megan Morris and an industry professional not yet announced, but they’ll have to be quick because submissions close on November 1.

Oriana Emerging Composer in Residence Program, all details here.

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