Music / Uprisings, The Oriana Chorale. At Anzac Memorial Chapel Duntroon, April 12. Reviewed by MICHAEL WILSON. 

The excitement in this brilliantly-executed concert by the Oriana Chorale was not in any individual piece, but in the fascinating, uplifting and courageous program itself.

Director Dan Walker assembled a collection of eight wildly contrasting works, united by a theme of uprisings generated by political turmoil and social movements. In our somewhat battered and dishevelled world, on the day of Hungary’s historic elections, challenging orthodoxy and celebrating people-power felt appropriate.   

Normally, a choir might start a concert with an easier piece to settle in. Not so here. Urgency, the first of three Carols After a Plague by American composer (and anti-racism activist) Shara Nova, had a stunning, controlled, atonal beginning, with the choir showing superb vocal control and blending qualities at very low volume. Tone Policing presented a clever riff on the Christmas carol Silent Night.

Hugo Distler’s Ich wollt, das ich daheime wär (I wish that I were home) began in an almost medieval tonality and form, the choir singing with gentle, delicate phrasing towards lovely cadences. Again, a tricky but superbly executed soprano solo (Jade McFaul) helped finish this melancholy piece: the narrator wishing to leave the earth for a heavenly home.

A selection of four songs from texts by revolutionary poets by Dmitri Shostakovich showed the composer in his enigmatic wrestle with the approval of the Soviet state. In Take Heart Friend, We’re Marching Onward (poem by Leonid Radin), patriotic zeal is self-evident, while other songs were more reflective and bittersweet.  Sung very convincingly in Russian, these songs showed off the considerable strength, richness and colour of Oriana’s male voices.

Amanda Feery’s The Very Air Tastes Different, written in celebration of Ireland’s referendum on same-sex marriage, again showcased the men: tenors in percussive vocalisations and high falsetto singing against more serene phrases from the basses. The final conclusive statement “all changed” hung confidently in the air.

In a concert of highlights, the final three works were all arresting. Joseph Twist’s How Shall We Sing in a Strange Land? melds Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s A Song of Hope with Psalm 137 to ask how a people finally liberated from oppression should now look to God and a new Dreamtime.  Joshua Dunne’s caressing baritone solo sounded over the athletic development of difficult chords, slow slides and half-tone intervals from the choir. 

Dan Walker’s Rebel Blood (sung by the women to words by Andrea Aguilar Ferro about the demonisation of menstruation) included surging crescendos and pull-backs, and a glittering finish on an unconventional but somehow satisfying chord. The Perfect Chord by Oriana’s 2026 Emerging Composer in Residence Sebastian Allen, was a brilliant finale. Gesturing to music’s ability to uplift in adversity – and celebrate diversity – this song felt like a signature number from a musical, including soprano solo and spoken phrases.

This thoroughly absorbing performance was one that will last long in the memory, both for its innovation and for its highly-polished delicacy and precision.