If I could be permitted a little hyperbole (an oxymoron in itself), St George’s Cathedral Concert Series has, under Dr Joseph Nolan’s artistic direction, always felt like a fissure of frisson in the rock-face of banality. And it’s growing wider.

That’s to say, regardless of whatever else is going on artistically in Perth, the series has, from year to year, offered, under the guise of a conservative choir-and-organ-centred program, premiere performances of specially-commissioned works (last year’s A New Ceremony of Carols by Lydia Gardiner is an excellent example), WA premieres (such as the forthcoming first professional performance in WA of Handel’s oratorio Samson) and revisionist takes on standard repertoire (any of Nolan’s Messiahs – take your pick).

Thomas Wilson. Photo supplied

It could be argued that delivering a concert series that is both traditional and progressive is part of the remit of any diocese. It’s a form of evangelism, even. Especially when, as is the case of St George’s Cathedral, you have such a fine instrument as the 1993 West Organ, which according to this concert’s program notes “is the largest mechanical-action instrument to be installed in Western Australia since...