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A medieval glass stained window of three kings bringing gifts to the Mother Mary and Jesus

Bach's Christmas Oratorio

13 December 2025

In the Concert Hall

Sydney Philharmonia Choirs

Classical Music

Follow the star with the three wise men in Bach’s brilliant and festive Christmas Oratorio.

...a chorus of angels...it all felt like shimmering silver clouds in the distance slowly building and moving closer.

ClassikON, 2024

Useful information:

Bach’s Christmas Oratorio

“And lo, the star, which they had seen in the East, went before them…”

Johann Sebastian Bach’s monumental ‘oratorio’ for the Christmas season is really a set of six cantatas – one for each of the first six days of Christmas. Performing them together in concert is the musical equivalent of binge-watching Bach – the best of guilty pleasures! 

In 2023, Brett Weymark conducted Parts 1–3 in what Limelight described as a triumphant ‘high-altitude assault on Bach’s magic mountain’. In 2025, Elizabeth Scott concludes the series with Parts 4–6. In these cantatas, the narrative turns to the Magi – the wise men from the East who followed the star to the Christ child – and Bach gives them music that’s as brilliant and intoxicating as gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Sydney Philharmonia’s Chamber Singers and elite youth ensemble VOX will be joined by the Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra, and two emerging composers will be invited to create reflective interludes to sit between the cantatas.

Presented by Sydney Philharmonia Choirs

Program

JS BACH Christmas Oratorio: Parts 4, 5, 6
with two new interludes by winners of the SPC Emerging Composer Awards

Artists

Elizabeth Scott conductor
Miriam Bannan soprano
Hannah Fraser mezzo-soprano 
Jacob Lawrence tenor
Christopher Richardson baritone 

Chamber Singers
VOX
Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra

Plan your visit

Venue information

Our foyers will be open 90 minutes pre-show for Concert Hall and Joan Sutherland Theatre performances, and two hours pre-show for Western Foyer venue performances. Refreshments will be available for purchase from our theatre bars.

All Sydney Opera House foyers are pram accessible, with lifts to the main and western foyers. The public lift to all foyers is accessible from the corridor near the escalators on the Lower Concourse and also in the Western Foyer via the corridor on the Ground Level (at the top of the escalators). Pram parking will be available outside the theatres in the Western Foyer.

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