By Helen Musa

With Anzac Day approaching, Polifemy is embarking on something it has never done before, blending slideshow, spoken word and music into its usual performance format.

Polifemy is a small all-women vocal ensemble (its name a pun on “polyphony”), was founded by Joan Milner in 2008 and has been directed for the past 12 years by Robyn Mellor.

The group typically performs a wide range of repertoire, from medieval and Renaissance madrigals and motets to contemporary classical works.

This time, inspired by letters, reports, photographs and memorabilia collected by her grandmother, Sister Ada Priscilla Smith, Mellor has created a multimedia presentation.

Having initially scheduled the concert for April 26, she realised the proximity to Anzac Day and has picked up on the obvious connection.

Founding member of Polifemy and director of Wesley Music Centre Liz McKenzie will read from Smith’s letters and reports, while the ensemble performs a cappella against a backdrop of photographic from her wartime experience, tracing her journey from Warwick in Queensland to Egypt, France, England and returning home to Australia in the early 1920s.

When I catch up with Mellor, she describes her grandmother as “a formidable old lady.” 

You can say that again. For around five years, Smith worked as a nurse behind the lines in Gallipoli and France. At one point, stationed in Boulogne in northeastern France, she was close enough to hear bombing in London, 150 kilometres away across the English Channel.

Her letters recount nursing on a beach where cabins were used to house infectious patients, later working in Boulogne and then in a clearing station where wounded soldiers were brought. Conditions were harsh, she lived in tents, worked in rough wooden buildings and endured freezing temperatures, so cold that eggs froze solid.

“I thought it would be interesting to hear the story of one woman, what it was like,” Mellor says, noting some unexpected details.

“She writes that she was actually well resourced and had all the nursing equipment she needed.

“We usually just do a concert, but I try to build a story through the music, and in this case everything came together.”

That sense of continuity extends to the performers, with this program including the granddaughter of founder Joan Milner and the daughter of Polifemy member Caroline Downer.

The musical program features motets by Cristóbal de Morales, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Orlande de Lassus, Tomás Luis de Victoria and others. 

The highlight will be the ensemble’s a cappella performance of Missa L’homme armé by Francisco Guerrero, based on a popular medieval French tune.

Its text remains strikingly relevant: “Everywhere it has been proclaimed that each man shall arm himself with a coat of iron mail. The armed man should be feared.”

Written in 1540, the melody became widely used during the Renaissance as the basis for many masses. 

It is, Mellor reports, “a wonderful piece of music.” 

One Woman’s War: An Anzac concert, Wesley Uniting Church, April 26.