In this new program in its MainStage series, the Song Company performs Dietrich Buxtehude’s seven-part oratorio Membra Jesu nostri patientis sanctissima (1680), interwoven with a world premiere of Chris Williams’ I pray the sea, and staged with choreography by Thomas E. S. Kelly (Karul Projects) performed by dancer Neville Williams-Boney. The Song Company is not the only group to juxtapose new Australian composition alongside key works from the European musical canon, and to introduce extra-musical components to its programming. But here the works were not just placed side by side, rather they were entwined in unexpected ways that highlighted their inter-relationships and placed us in the here and now.

Arms of Love, The Song Company, 2022. Photo © Keith Saunders

The Song Company’s collaboration on this project also brought in Jenny Eriksson from The Marais Project and Hylton Mowday from We Love Jam. With their involvement, the continuo part that would routinely be played by a few string players and a Baroque keyboard instrument was here rendered by soprano saxophone and electric viola da gamba, with Musical Director Antony Pitts exploring the timbral possibilities of a Rhodes keyboard....