Third time lucky! For the past two seasons, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus has had to cancel its long-awaited performance of Fauré’s Requiem due to health restrictions related to the pandemic. Now, finally, on the third attempt, they managed to deliver it in the vast edifice of St Patrick’s Cathedral.

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus. Photo © Liam Hennebry

The concert attracted a near-capacity audience – well over 2,000 souls, by one reckoning. Still the largest church building in Australia, St Pat’s was once thought to be the largest church in the southern hemisphere.

Since re-locating to Australia in 2008, conductor Warren Trevelyan-Jones has been Head of Music at St James’ Church, designed by convict Francis Greenway in King Street, Sydney. He was appointed Chorus Director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in September 2017.

This weekend Trevelyan-Jones joined his two choral posts, so to speak, in the opening work of the program, the Missa Aenigmata, by Sydney-based composer Brooke Shelley, In 2019, Shelley, who also sings with the Choir at St James, was commissioned by Dr Lincoln Law, President of the Friends of Music at St James, to compose a work...