Hobart-based composer Nic Courto can’t quite bring himself to fully embrace the idea of a life after death. He can’t completely let go of it, either.

“I like to think of myself as quite an empirical person,” Courto tells Limelight. “But I’m also really terrified of the idea of dying, have been my whole life. So, like a lot of people, I’m quite attracted to the idea that there might be something else in store for me after I die – even though it’s completely unprovable.”

Image © Pablo Stanic/Unsplash

Courto’s conflicted feelings regarding death have inspired him to write a narrative song cycle on the subject, Afterlife, which premieres in Hobart’s St David’s Cathedral as part of the city’s 18th annual Festival of Voices.

In it, Courto and the award-winning Hobart based ensemble ThylaSing give voice to the dying and the dead, to those left behind and those keen to be on their way.

The origins of the project lie in a song Courto wrote about taxidermy. “I was thinking about it as a metaphor,” he says. “It’s really not a song about taxidermy as such, but more about people who can’t let go of love, who try to preserve it long after it’s gone, holding together things that perhaps should be let go.”

Encouraged by the reaction of his choir colleagues, Courto penned two more songs – Necromancy and Autopsy.

“It became a little suite we performed a couple of times and then Festival of Voices approached me to ask if I could turn it into something bigger. What started as a bit of a joke has now become this whole consideration of death and dying.”

Courto read widely around the subject. “I learned a lot, probably more than I really wanted to,” he says. He also drew on the expertise of his partner, a research scientist specialising in cancer.

“Her job is to stop people from dying I suppose, but she has lots of connections in the science community. I was able to talk to a person who performs autopsies and find out what that was like – from the technical perspective but also from the emotional perspective. The song that came out that is about what it’s like confronting death daily as part of your job, and how you talk to people who knew and loved the person you are – for want of a better word – ‘working’ with.”

Nic Courto. Photo supplied

Afterlife also features the mythological figure Charon, the boatman who takes the dead across the River Styx. “I love that idea that death is a journey,” Courto says. “That there’s something on the other side of the river that you can’t imagine or ever come back from.”

Humour plays a part, too, Courto adds. For example, in Afterlife, audiences will meet an ensemble Courto has named the Hades Barbershop Quartet. “It’s four gentlemen who have ended up in the less good version of the afterlife and are wondering what about what they did to get there.”

Finding the funny in death has been a delicate balancing act, Courto adds. “Humour is something I’ve used very carefully. I’m not interested in just dismissing or cheapening the idea of death. You want to take it seriously, but at the same time, you don’t want to be completely demoralising.”

Humour comes from the inevitability of death, he says. “You will die, and you can either live in fear of it, or you can embrace it in some way – or maybe have your brain frozen in a jar.”

Is that an attractive idea? After all, at 33, Courto stands a chance of seeing some kind of technological preservation of human consciousness beyond death become a reality.

“I like my consciousness right now, so I’m hopeful,” he laughs. “I just want to live long enough so that I can have the contents of my brain uploaded into some kind of artificial environment and live forever.”

As well as presenting Afterlife, Courto will be taking part in panel discussions and popular events. “I love the opportunity Festival of Voices gives artists who don’t have a big ‘market’ in commercial terms to come together to celebrate. I really enjoy the workshops and the big sing-alongs, the opportunities to meet and talk and sing together. We all need much more of that.”

Afterlife is performed at St David’s Cathedral, Hobart, 30 June.

For complete Festival of Voices programming, visit this link.