Experience the Carmina Burana for Sydney Chamber Choir Concert at City Recital Hall on 22 March, where Orff’s iconic score meets contemporary Australian choral works.
On a late Sunday afternoon in Sydney, the light softens around Angel Place. Office towers empty, café cups clink quietly, and the city’s weekday rhythm loosens its grip. In this narrow corridor of the CBD, just beyond the bustle of George Street, the doors of City Recital Hall open to a different kind of gathering.
Inside, the anticipation is almost tactile. Programs rustle. A stage waits under careful lighting. When audiences arrive for the Carmina Burana for Sydney Chamber Choir Concert, they come not just for a familiar piece of music but for a shared ritual – one that draws together centuries of poetry, myth and rhythm.
Few works announce themselves as unmistakably as Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. Even for those who cannot name the composer, the thunderous opening chorus, “O Fortuna,” carries instant recognition. Yet this concert promises more than the famous refrain. It invites audiences into a layered landscape of music that moves between medieval Europe and contemporary Australia.
For the Sydney Chamber Choir, the performance marks the opening chapter of a new season after its celebrated 50th anniversary year. The program looks both backward and forward, pairing Orff’s iconic score with voices that speak powerfully to place, language and Country.
Carmina Burana For Sydney Chamber Choir Concert Returns To The Stage
The last time the choir performed Carmina Burana was a decade ago, in 2016, under the baton of the late conductor Richard Gill. For many within the ensemble, that performance remains a vivid memory – one tied not only to the music’s dramatic power but also to Gill’s enduring influence on Australia’s choral culture.
Now, artistic director Sam Allchurch revisits the work with fresh perspective. The Carmina Burana for Sydney Chamber Choir Concert arrives in a chamber arrangement originally conceived by Orff himself: two pianos and percussion replacing the sweep of a full orchestra.
Rather than reducing the work’s force, the arrangement sharpens it. Percussion strikes with ritual clarity; the pianos drive the rhythm forward like a pulse beneath the choir. The effect is both intimate and elemental, allowing the voices to take centre stage.
Three soloists guide the musical storytelling: soprano Celeste Lazarenko, tenor Louis Hurley and baritone Simon Meadows. Their roles move swiftly between satire, romance and revelry – echoing the medieval texts that inspired the score.
And then there is the chorus itself, shifting from whisper to roar, laughter to lament. It is here that Orff’s vision truly comes alive.
Voices Young And Old
A distinctive feature of the Carmina Burana for Sydney Chamber Choir Concert is the presence of the Sydney Children’s Choir. Their voices, bright and unguarded, weave through the performance like shafts of light.
Children’s choirs have always played a role in Orff’s theatrical world, adding a fragile clarity that contrasts with the weight of adult voices. In this concert, that dynamic becomes particularly poignant.
The children also appear in another major work on the program: Paul Stanhope’s I Am Martuwarra. The piece reflects the story of the Martuwarra – also known as the Fitzroy River in Western Australia – through language, rhythm and layered choral textures.
Placed alongside Orff’s medieval satire, the work reminds listeners that song is one of humanity’s oldest ways of speaking to landscape and belonging.
Landscapes In Music
The program surrounding Carmina Burana offers moments of reflection before the storm of Orff’s score arrives.
Composer Nardi Simpson contributes Dharriwaa – Narran Lakes Dreaming, a piece rooted in the wetlands of north-western New South Wales. Through chant-like lines and spacious harmonies, the music evokes water, birds and memory carried through Country.
Elsewhere, American composer David Conte’s Invocation and Dance provides a lyrical counterpoint. It moves with quiet grace, its melodies unfolding like an opening conversation between choir and audience.
Together, these works form a journey that stretches across geography and time. Medieval German texts meet contemporary Australian storytelling; ancient rhythms encounter modern choral craft.
By the time the Carmina Burana for Sydney Chamber Choir Concert reaches its climactic opening chorus, the audience has already travelled through several musical landscapes.
The Pull Of O Fortuna
When the first drumbeats land, the room changes.
Even those who have heard Carmina Burana countless times feel the shift in atmosphere. The chorus rises suddenly, immense and unified, as if summoned from somewhere deeper than rehearsal rooms and concert stages.
Orff’s score is built on cycles of fate – fortune rising, falling, spinning endlessly. Medieval monks wrote the poems centuries ago, scribbling verses about love, gambling, springtime and the unpredictable wheel of life. Orff transformed them into something theatrical and primal.
In the Carmina Burana for Sydney Chamber Choir Concert, those ideas resonate with fresh immediacy. The stripped-back instrumentation reveals the rhythmic engine beneath the music. Percussion cracks like distant thunder. Pianos surge forward. Voices leap between mockery and reverence.
And then, just as suddenly as it begins, the cycle returns to its starting point. “O Fortuna” closes the work as it opened it – reminding listeners that fortune’s wheel never truly stops.
Event Details
Sydney Chamber Choir – Carmina Burana
Date: Sunday, 22 March 2026
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: City Recital Hall, 2 Angel Place, Sydney
Performers:
Sydney Chamber Choir
Sydney Children’s Choir
Celeste Lazarenko (Soprano)
Louis Hurley (Tenor)
Simon Meadows (Baritone)
Luke Byrne & Jem Harding (Pianos)
Jess Ciampa (Percussion)
Program:
David Conte – Invocation and Dance
Nardi Simpson – Dharriwaa – Narran Lakes Dreaming
Paul Stanhope – I Am Martuwarra
Carl Orff – Carmina Burana
Tickets: From $30
Bookings: https://www.sydneychamberchoir.org
Phone: (02) 8256 2222