Music / Sun Moon Stars, The Resonants. At Weston Creek Uniting Church, September 13. Reviewed by IAN McLEAN.

The healing power of music remains underestimated.  

At the end of a week where war continued to escalate rather than retract, when race and religious intolerance increased further, protests became more angry and violent, and a political assassination occurred, it was amazingly calming to escape into the arms of beautiful music to allow its magic to heal the horrors of recent sad events, even if just a little bit.

And beautiful music it was that was produced by The Resonants, a choir now in its 35^th year of performing a variety of historic and contemporary choral music with a focus on supporting Australian composers.

In four segments this concert explored the natural world and the magic of the universe as it ventured into music related to the sun, moon, stars and landscape of our planet.

The haunting and atmospheric Sunrise on the Coast by Australian composer Joseph Twist opened proceedings and set the tone for the evening with tight harmony, clean and accurate intonation and fine balance evident between the four vocal sections.   Strong male voices laid the groundwork for Elgar’s As Torrents in Summer, before neat and clean phrase endings featured in Clouds.

Follow the Stars, a new work by Sophie Van Dijk (the great-niece of choir director Helen Swan) was written for soprano and alto voices only, providing a perfect opportunity for the female singers to display their ability to sing long sustained phrases whilst maintaining excellent pitch and balance.

An instrumental interlude followed with a sparkling arrangement of George Harrison’s Here Come the Sun played by a string quartet of high-quality Canberra musicians – Tim Wickham and Claire Phillips (violin), Thayer Preece (viola) and Sam Payne (cello).

Imagery featured in the landscape segment with two scenes of winter in Norway by Ola Gjeilo and one of the highlights of the concert – Elgar’s powerful and full bodied The Snow with its rich tonal colours and well executed dynamic contrast and control.

The moon moment contrasted a 1576 work by Orlande de Lassus depicting a sad and sombre moon, with a 2022 composition by Abigail Lui where the moon is pictured set against the stars. These were complemented by an unaccompanied Canyon Moon by English singer/songwriter/actor and original member of One Direction, Harry Styles, a performer much to the fore with his impact on current youth culture. His song was cleverly arranged by Kirsten Duncan, one of the alto members of the choir.

Four songs based around Earth concluded the concert with two particular highlights – The Long Day Closes by Sir Arthur Sullivan, which was sung with great serenity pervading a sense of absolute peace and quiet then the uplifting Samuel Barber work, Sure on this Shining Night.

Subtle, clean and concise piano accompaniment for the concert was provided by the versatile and gifted Emily Leong who also played a charming solo piano interlude – a delicate and pretty, mixed with jazz blues, City of Stars from the 2016 movie La La Land.

This was an enjoyable and uplifting concert of beautiful music sung with accuracy and competence by a choir with well nurtured and developed vocal technique.

If only it could have been bottled then the whole world made to sit quietly for an hour and a half to listen. Perhaps the healing power of music would then be better understood and appreciated, the folly of current world problems realised and some peaceful, compassionate sanity returned.