Messiah Reimagined

2018 is Leichhardt Espresso Chorus’s 20th birthday. It’s a time to celebrate, and what better way than to appeal to the Australian composers that we’ve worked with over the years and add to our amazing legacy of over 100 new choral works?
Our 20th birthday project is our gift to the Sydney choral scene. ‘Messiah Reimagined’ combines new works and arrangements inspired by Handel’s Messiah.

When approaching composers to join the project artistic director Michelle Leonard OAM said, “I want people to feel like they will get a better understanding of their place in the wider universe… how precious life is – how fragile the earth is – and how wondrous the gift of human kindness is… that enormity of the night sky – and that feeling of knowing you are somehow connected to everyone and everything, but not”.

One composer, Sally Whitwell’s response: “As composition briefs go, this one was unusually poetic. It’s exactly the kind of thing I want to hear in a brief because it provides the actual inspiration for the thing she wants me to write. Most briefs will give you little more than a general idea of the topic, the instrumentation and voicing, and a description of the skill level of the ensemble. They don’t give you colourful prose musing on the meaning of our existence. But Michelle’s did.”

We’re looking forward to performing Sally’s new work as well as others from Gerard Brophy, Dan Walker, Lyle Chan, Elena Kats-Chernin, Alice Chance, Andrew Howes, Luke Byrne and many more composers we have worked with over the last 20 years.

A truly spectacular program of modern music inspired by a true classic.