Touring Projects

GARDEN OF

EARTHLY

DELIGHTS

A garden teeming with temptation and desire, grotesque creatures and improbable scenes of surrender: the uninhibited world of Hieronymus Bosch’s 500-year-old triptych “De tuin der lusten”, the Garden of Earthly Delights. Trust Luminescence Chamber Singers to turn this surreal feast of the senses into an aural tapestry as pleasurable and perilous as Bosch’s vision. Drawn from the vaults of Renaissance raunch, Medieval monasterial excess, and daring modern transgressions, Garden of Earthly Delights offers a vocal cornucopia of surprise and surreptitiously cheeky delight.

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GESUALDO

TENEBRAE

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“It is as if this work would constantly extend over its boundaries and transgress its time and setting, immediately addressing modernity…”

6 unaccompanied singers; 1 hour no interval

A tapestry of songs and stories spanning 2000 years, old airs is music about time itself; the way things change, and the way things remain.

6 unaccompanied singers; 1 hour no interval
Conducted by Roland Peelman AM

old airs

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GLASS HEART

500 years of love songs and break-up anthems. From Monteverdi’s monumental “Sestina” and Marenzio’s sensuous “Baci Soavi e Cari”, to music by David Lang, Eric Whitacre, Drew Crawford, and more. Glass Heart explores the fragility of life and love, and the shattering pain of heartbreak.

6 unaccompanied voices; 1 hour, no interval

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Of The Body

Drawing inspiration from Renaissance art, music, and science, Dan Walker’s Of The Body is a musical dissection of sorts. Each movement of this song cycle is devoted to an anatomical part: the eyes, the hands, the mouth, the feet, the blood, and finally, the heart. Of the Body traverses sex, sensuality, our flesh and blood; to exploring our corporeal form in a distinctly contemporary context.

6 unaccompanied voices; 1 hour no interval
Conducted by Roland Peelman AM

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RED

DIRT

HYMNS

A hymnal to the country under our feet.

A living songbook more than four years in the making, Andrew Ford’s hymnal brings together the words of sixteen contemporary Australian writers – poets, essayists, and folksingers. Born in a time of fire and darkness, grief, and loss, and then fragile, tender hope, Red Dirt Hymns are songs of awe and praise, dedicated not to a god, but to the land.

6 amplified singers; electric guitar; amplified cello
projection (optional)
1 hour no interval
associated community workshops available

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BLOOM

The first signs of spring are symbols of hope and promise, rebirth, and renewal. Of course, flowers and the motifs of spring are also reminders of life’s cycles. In the still life scenes of the Dutch masters, flowers denoted not only beauty, but decay and fragility; death, and loss. From Renaissance polyphony to contemporary classics, Luminescence Chamber Singers celebrate the happy season of spring, the blossoming flowers, the shifting tides, and reflect on transience, impermanence, the inexorable march of time, and climate crisis.
6 unaccompanied singers; 1 hour no interval

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B.A.C.H.

In this concert of musical cyphers, Luminescence Chamber Singers join forces with guest artist Anna Freer (violin/voice) to perform Bach’s monumental Partita no.2 in D Minor, interwoven with some of Bach’s most beloved chorales. The concert culminates in a new arrangement of the Chaconne – a setting for voices and violin that reveals a tapestry of references to Bach chorales buried in bones of the Chaccone.

6 unaccompanied singers; violin

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drawing breath

Luminescence Chamber Singers explore first breaths, last breaths, and music as diverse as the vast compass of human life and feeling in between: from Machaut and Gesualdo, to Pink Floyd, and newly commissioned works by Australian composers Brenda Gifford, Jess Green, and Dan Walker.

6 unaccompanied singers; 1 hour no interval

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Performing the Betty Beaver Blaze with William Barton, Canberra International Music Festival (2017)

with the trial-concert cohort of Luminescence Children's Choir

with conductor Gordon Hamilton, Descent into Madness (2016)

Canberra international Music Festival (2018)

Dan Walker leading a conducting masterclass (2017)

With Daniel Brinsmead at Canberra Voices

with Sally Whitwell at the High Court (2016)

With Gordon Hamitlon on ABC Radio in Port Macquarie

In rehearsal with Roland Peelman and Kim Cunio

In rehearsal with Roland Peelman, Ensemble Offspring, and the Song Company

Canberra International Music Festival (2022)

Performing at the National Gallery of Australia (2022)

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Visiting Sing Out Choir in Dubbo, NSW 2023

In the ABC Sydney Studio with Virginia Read

Of The Body Album Recording at ABC Sydney, 2024

Backstage at Melbourne Recital Centre, 2024

With composer Andrew Ford, Red Dirt Hymns 2024