A tsunami of sound as ChorusOz sets sail for the Sea Symphony

A tsunami of sound from the 900 choristers of ChorusOz threatened to lift the roof off the Opera House sails.

ChorusOz performing A Sea Symphony at the Sydney Opera House. Picture: Keith Saunders

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The massive opening chord with brass and blazing organ, and the tsunami of sound as 900 choristers sang “Behold the sea”, threatened to lift the roof off the Opera House sails when Sydney Philharmonia Choirs’ ChorusOz performed Ralph Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony.

The annual concerts are unique in that the singers are all amateurs who sign up for the gig, learn the piece and practise at home and only meet each other for intensive rehearsals the day before the performance. For the majority of singers - who came from all over Australia as well as New Zealand and Hong Kong – this was their first experience of being on the Opera House stage. For all of them – and all save a handful of the 80-plus orchestral musicians – this was their first encounter with the symphony.

Artistic and music director Brett Weymark aims high with these ChorusOz projects, having supervised and conducted Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man and Gustav Mahler’s Eighth “Symphony of a Thousand” in previous years, and this decision to tackle Williams’ 70-minute first symphony was no less ambitious.

“Each year I’m blown away by people’s commitment to learning the notes, drilling the text and bringing the best of themselves to create a memorable performance in just 12 hours!” Weymark says.

Reviewers are not normally invited to these concerts, but this year SPC made an exception and this was my first experience of a ChorusOz gig.

There were 1000 musicians on stage for the ChorusOz concert. Picture: Keith Saunders

It’s staggering that such a complex and detailed work as this can be staged with such success. I was expecting rough edges but I found none worthy of mention. Weymark’s precise and energetic conducting – aided by a giant screen suspended above the podium – ensured that entries were precise and Walt Whitman’s poems that form the text were clearly enunciated.

The Philharmonia Orchestra, boasting several members past and present of Sydney Symphony and other professional orchestras, were on point throughout and the work had two fine soloists in Opera Australia regulars baritone Andrew Moran and soprano Julie Lea Goodwin, who handled her demanding role beautifully with ringing and spine-tingling top notes – high Cs on the high seas.

It was inevitable that with such forces to contend with some of Moran’s low notes occasionally got swamped, but this was a first-class performance all round, from the storm-tossed opening to the dying notes of the solo cello at the end.

The enthusiastic audience – many of them family and friends of the performers – got to loosen their vocal cords with Williams’ rousing setting of The Old 100th Psalm Tune, better known as the hymn “All people that on earth do dwell”.

DETAILS

• CONCERT ChorusOz 2025: A Sea Symphony

• WHERE Sydney Opera House Concert Hall

• WHEN June 10, 2025