Music / The Garden of Earthly Delights, Luminescence Chamber Singers. At Wesley Music Centre, October 12. Reviewed by SARAH BYRNE.

Luminescence Chamber Singers, now in their tenth year, and working with artistic mentor Roland Peelman, showed us again in this packed concert why they were deserving winners in last year’s Canberra Critics Circle awards.

In The Garden of Earthly Delights, Luminescence has curated a concert of music around the theme of the Hieronymous Bosch painting of the same name, circa 1500, a bizarre, populous and hectic triptych depicting the Garden of Eden through the fall of humankind and the resulting post-apocalyptic hell.

It’s a very famous painting, and to get the best of this concert required some familiarity with it. Fortunately the excellent hard-copy program does sterling work in placing the text of each piece with details of the part of the work to which it relates, creating an effective and immersive experience.

The concert pairs music of Bosch’s time with more contemporary pieces, including the world premieres of two new commissions, Escape by Queensland composer Nicole Murphy, and a setting of Naruda’s Ode to the Apple, by Archie Tulk. In addition to the more expected pieces from Hildegarde von Bingen (gorgeous) and three visits to Josquin de Prez’ 1505 Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae (one for each panel of the triptych), there are appealing and innovative arrangements by tenor Dan Walker of Earthly Delights by Norwegian musician Aurora, and Hot Knife by Fiona Apple.

The music, as one might expect, gets more interesting as we descend into hell, with two pieces from Frank Nuyts, including a not-your-grandmother’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik amongst the 16th century de Lassus, Verdelot and Luzzaschi.

Also, as expected, the voices, dynamics and blend of these singers is sublime, save for a small issue with matching their volumes in the first piece, the intriguing Story, a Gertrude Stein text set by John Cage, sung as a quartet – immediately resolved and irrelevant as the piece segued a mere millennium or so into von Bingen’s Com Erubunt Infelices, sung by soprano Josephine Brereton and baritone Lucien Fischer from the choir loft, before joining Walker, director and mezzo AJ America, soprano Rachel Mink and bass-baritone Alasdair Stretch. There were few solo moments, which is a bit of a shame, given the quality of these voices individually, but they are gloriously well-matched as an ensemble.

My favourite pieces for the evening were Gavin Bryars Poi Che Voi Et Io Piu Volte Abbiam Provato – I can never get enough of Bryars, the raw beauty of his work almost enough to return me to the church – and Peelman’s own arrangement of Bo Burnham’s Welcome To the Internet (“everything, everywhere, all of the time!”), just as hectic and cartoonish as the Bosch, with both this and Walker’s arrangements featuring innovative vocal percussion as well as fascinating harmonies. Peelman even joins in on drum now and again.

Luminescence does Canberra proud, and I can’t wait to see what the next 10 years will bring.