Music / Our Stories, Canberra Choral Society, conducted by Dan Walker. At James Fairfax Theatre,  National Gallery of Australia. March 29. Reviewed by ALANNA MACLEAN.

Canberra Choral Society’s Our Stories gave its audience an unusual collection of material and much to reflect upon in its contribution to the first Upstageing Canberra Festival.

Conducted by Dan Walker, the long and varied program explored various aspects of human existence.

There were ruminations on love, on time, on faith, on beauty, on the divine and, in a somewhat surprising conclusion, the gloomy world view of Thomas Hardy.

The choir was added to where needed by solo work from soprano Rachel Mink and bass-baritone Alasdair Stretch. Sally Whitwell on piano and the Ellery String Quartet were unobtrusive in splendid support and grand in moments where they shone alone.

Mink and Stretch emerged more strongly with some solo work, Stretch in the traditional The Dying Soldier and Mink especially in the sweetness of Dan Walker’s The Touch.

Joni Mitchell’s The Circle Game perhaps didn’t quite get the clarity it needed to make its proper impact, but later on Sting’s Fields of Gold stood out as a wonderful hymn to the transience of life and the memories of love.

In a long and complex program the modern was offset by pieces harking back to older certainties of faith. Settings by Jake Runestad and Ola Gjeilo linked love and religion while Marjorie Halloran’s Our First April put life alongside the growing season in the northern hemisphere.

Morten Lauridsen’s setting of James Agee’s Sure on this Shining Night talked of healing and of stars and Bill Douglas’ Deep Peace used an ancient Gaelic blessing to settle restlessness and doubt.

The recorded voices of older choristers talking about their experiences were at times a little muffled and perhaps might have worked better done live. The James Fairfax is a great little space and repays a hearty address to the back wall. There were moments that used this especially from the large and lovely choir.

All the religious and passionate pieces were great to hear, but I found myself strangely warming to the concluding song, dour old Thomas Hardy’s lugubriously named He Never Expected Much in a setting by Dan Walker. Perhaps the concert meant to leave us with the thought that this is a fitting philosophy in times of uncertainty.