Sydney Chamber Choir

Photo of Sydney Chamber Choir with Sam Allchurch on spiral wooden staircase

We are passionate about choral music and its unique ability to celebrate and reflect upon the stories of our past, present and future.

We love to travel deep inside the music to meet the composers and bring their vision alive in sound. We reach back to explore the masterpieces of the Baroque and the Renaissance, while also championing the music of our own time and place, regularly commissioning works by established and emerging Australian composers.

In recent years, the choir has premiered new works by Brenda Gifford, Ella Macens, Harry Sdraulig, Brooke Shelley, Paul Stanhope, Joe Twist and Elizabeth Younan. In both 2022 and 2023, the APRA-AMCOS Award for Choral Work of the Year went to works written for and premiered by us: Paul Stanhope's Requiem, and Heather Percy's Three Night Songs.

Formed in 1975, we have been honoured to work with guest conductors such as Carl Crossin, Roland Peelman, Elizabeth Scott and Brett Weymark, as well as our three previous directors, Nicholas Routley, Paul Stanhope and the late Richard Gill AO.

We collaborate with leading Australian ensembles and instrumentalists, including the Australian Haydn Ensemble, the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, Slava Grigoryan, Orchestra of the Antipodes, Synergy Percussion, Joseph Tawadros and The Muffat Collective. We also enjoy more unconventional partnerships, including concerts with the Hilltop Hoods, The Idea of North and the Sydney Mardi Gras Community Choir.

We appeared at the 2023 Adelaide Chamber Music Festival, the 2022 Canberra International Music Festival and the 2021 Sydney Festival, and we tour regularly in regional NSW, most recently to Goulburn in 2024. We have sung in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the UK, and in 2009 the choir was a prizewinner in the Tolosa International Choral Competition in Spain. In May 2025, we will return to Europe to give concerts in Berlin, Hannover and Leipzig.

Our performances have been broadcast on ABC Classic, 2MBS Fine Music Sydney and Australian Digital Concert Hall, and our CD recordings are available on the ABC Classic and Tall Poppies labels, and via download and streaming services.

Video of Sydney Chamber Choir singing Rise Up, My Love by Healey Willan

Our People

  • Artistic Director – Sam Allchurch

  • Principal Rehearsal Pianist – Jem Harding

  • President – Christopher Matthies

  • Vice President – Amanda Durham

  • Secretary – Megan Cronin

  • Treasurer – Chris Othen

  • Committee members – Kristen Butchatsky, Matthew Flood and Sébastien Maury

  • Committee member – Rose Trevelyan

  • Philanthropy Manager – Kristen Butchatsky

Photo of chorister in left profile
 

“When a group is together long enough that there is mutual trust both between members of the group and the group and their audience, it allows introverted voices and more complex ideas to blossom.  The expression of these ideas is the intangible thing that keeps all of us (onstage and off stage) captivated in Sydney Chamber Choir concerts.”

Wei Jiang
Soprano