We are excited to present our concert season for 2024!
Four rich and diverse programs featuring a creative blend of choral favourites and lesser-known masterpieces. This season of concerts draws from over six hundred years of choral music, often in the same performance.
For many “December” means “Christmas”, but for us, it is the anticipation of this festive season, which allows us to explore some very beautiful choral repertoire. The Seven Antiphons by Bob Chilcott provide this antictipation, each movement drawing from the beautifully moving “O” Antiphon texts of the 8th century.
For our début performance in Hobart’s Baha’i Centre, Allegri Ensemble presents a hand-picked selection of secular & spiritual songs, madrigals and motets, to suit this unique and intimate performance space.
It has been said that the “godfather” of renaissance polyphony, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, wrote a mass setting so beautiful that it changed the Pope’s mind on “complicated music”. Meet the man, the myth and the legend that surrounds 'Missa Papae Marcelli'. This concert also includes sublime music by Josquin & Taverner.
For our first concert for 2024 in the magnificent surrounds of St. David's Cathedral, we offer music of sorrow and penitence, befitting the season of Lent.
Music old and new will be brought into sharp relief: "Ave Verum Corpus" set by both William Byrd and Karl Jenkins will bookend the program, and we are excited to present two settings of the "Miserere"; the iconic by Gregorio Allegri with its famous "top-Cs" will feature Madeleine Dyer as soloist, and the modern, composed by James MacMillan in 2009.
Palestrina's works "Super Flumina Babylonis" and "Stabat Mater" illustrate the sorrows of the Israelites during their Babylonian exile, and of the Virgin Mary at the Crucifixion.
The heart-rending grief of King David at the loss of his son Absolom is laid bare in Thomas Tomkins' "When David Heard".
To express our thanks to All Saints Church South Hobart for providing the very comfortable Hawker Centre for our rehearsal space, we will be presenting a program in the church (339 Macquarie St., South Hobart) on Sunday 26th November at 5 p.m.
This will take the place of their usual Evensong service on that day, and will be of about 45 minutes duration. We are preparing a program of music that heralds the coming of Advent. This glorious music offers moments of quiet meditation and soaring glimpses of the sublime, and will uplift the hearts of all. General public are warmly invited to share this meditative program with the All Saints congregation.
Entry is by donation, with proceeds going towards the major project of restoration of All Saints’ Lady Chapel. The southern wall of the Chapel has suffered water damage, requiring removal and replacement of plaster, and the Nativity Fresco is also deteriorating and in need of repair.
This historically significant chapel, originally known as the Chapel of St. George, was created as a War Memorial in 1918 in the side transept designed by Henry Hunter. We look forward to being able to contribute to the restoration of this beautiful chapel.
A champagne supper will be provided in the Hawker Centre after the concert.
Allegri Ensemble is thrilled to be celebrating the 250th anniversary of this exuberant and joyous mass setting on 23 September. Our two performances (3pm and 8pm) will feature a 19-part classical orchestra and esteemed soloists Molly Ryan (soprano), Sally-Anne Russell (alto), Jiacheng Ding (tenor) and Samuel Dundas (bass).
Join us as we transform the Hobart Town Hall into an intimate classical "salon" - you will feel very much a part of the performance!