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Utzon Music 2024 VOCES8 with Jack Liebeck

23 June 2024

In the Concert Hall

Classical Music

Don’t miss world-renowned UK vocal ensemble VOCES8 and violinist Jack Liebeck, with a special guest appearance by the Moorambilla Voices’ MAXed OUT youth choir from regional NSW.

This soaring performance, combining the talent of two choral ensembles, will be a powerful and uplifting experience in the Concert Hall.

VOCES8’s gorgeous sound, impeccable ensemble and intense responsiveness to text, harmony and melodic shape is all of the highest quality. Hearing them sing is a joy.

BBC Music Magazine

Useful information:

Experience vocal music at its finest

Don’t miss vocal music at its finest when VOCES8 return to the Sydney Opera House with special guest violinist Jack Liebeck and MAXed Out youth choir from Moorambilla Voices, this season’s only Utzon Music Series concert in the Concert Hall. Named for Jake Runestedt’s haunting Let My Love Be Heard, VOCES8’s program explores themes of healing, solace and hope alongside the ensemble’s soaring jazz arrangements. Inspired by birds in music and poetry, the program includes Ralph Vaughan Williams’ famous orchestral work The Lark Ascending in a special arrangement for choir and violin, Caroline Shaw’s and the swallow with a violin part written by VOCES8 baritone Christopher Moore and the world premiere of Effortlessly by American composer Taylor Scott Davis. Following VOCES8’s recent work with Paul Simon on his Grammy-nominated 2023 album Seven Psalms, the program includes two of his classic songs alongside arrangements of music by George Gershwin, Ben Folds and Kate Rusby.

I’m thrilled to be back in Australia, now my second home, performing alongside my great musical friends and collaborators VOCES8. Performing with them in this unique programme on the legendary stage of Sydney Opera House will be something for me to savour for many years to come.

Jack Liebeck

Program

Let My Love Be Heard 

Orlando Gibbons O Clap your hands 
Melissa Dunphy Halcyon Days 
Jake Runestad Let My Love Be Heard 
Taylor Scott Davis Effortlessly 
Caroline Shaw and the swallow 
Ralph Vaughan Williams arr. Paul Drayton The Lark Ascending 

Interval 

Josie Gibson Yindyamarra, performed by Moorambilla Voices
Kevin Barker Rearrangement of Riversong, performed with Moorambilla Voices
Andrew Howes New Commission: Mutawintji Nocturne, performed with Moorambilla Voices
Nat King Cole arr. Jim Clements Straighten Up and Fly Right 
Kate Rusby arr. Jim Clements Underneath the Stars 
Ben Folds arr. Clements The Luckiest 
Thomas Weelkes As Vesta Was from Lathmos Hill Descending 
Orlando di Lasso Dessus le Marché d’Arras 
Simon and Garfunkel arr. Alexander L’Estrange The Sound of Silence 
Don McLean arr. Jim Clements Vincent 
George Gershwin arr. Jim Clements Slap That Bass

Artist Information

VOCES8
Andrea Haines First soprano
MaryRuth Miller Second soprano
Katie Jeffries-Harris First alto
Barnaby Smith Second alto
Blake Morgan First tenor
Euan Williamson Second tenor
Chris Moore Baritone
Dominic Carver Bass
Jack Liebeck Guest violinist

Moorambilla
Sally Whitwell Pianist
Simone Slattery Violin
Emily Sheppard Violin
Katie Yap Viola
Anthony Albrecht Cello
Christina Leonard Saxophone

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