It was a historic weekend for Sydney as Pier 2/3 at Walsh Bay held its opening festival, revealing The Neilson Theatre, brand new home of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. This state-of-the-art performance space, previously a wool shed, will now serve the city into the 21st century and beyond. In this celebration, The Song Company, resident in the adjacent Pier 4/5, presented its 12, inaugural 2022 SongCo Apprentices from Victoria and New South Wales. Under the watchful direction of Antony Pitts in its “Underground” series Tremors of Earth, the apprentices, part of the next generation of ensemble singers, performed a program of grand European Renaissance polyphony by Antoine Brumel and Nicolas Gombert, interleaved with contemporary pieces by Alice Chance and Antony Pitts. 

The SongCo Apprentices. Photo supplied

The occasion is tinged with grief as Pitts dedicates the performance to countertenor and former Song Company member Maximilian Riebl who lost his battle with cancer this weekend, aged just 30. 

The program takes us from death to resurrection. At its heart is Antoine Brumel’s brilliant 12-part Missa et ecce terrae motus