Christ Church Concerts

CHRIST CHURCH CONCERTS, DAYLESFORD 2025
Welcome to our fourth year series of concerts at Christ Church Daylesford, a fundraising initiative for the Parish toward maintaining our historic buildings. These series bring us an eclectic range of chamber music concerts not regularly mounted in Daylesford or across Central Victoria.

Several of our ensembles and artists are returning this year to perform again, in addition to several new artists or ensembles. Early music periods are the focus in our exciting and brilliant programming. This year we are delighted with the introduction of more voice. Two concerts have singers accompanied by historic baroque instruments. A third concert features a long established cappella choir celebrating the 500th anniversary of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.

Both the Church and Stanbridge Hall are ideal settings for these concerts with their high acoustic qualities. We are sure you will again enjoy the virtuosity of these performances and we look forward to welcoming you to Christ Church Daylesford.

Program
Saturday 8 March Christ Church
THE MAD LOVER
Kate Macfarlane, soprano
Hannah Lane, baroque harp
With the intimate paring of voice and harp, The Mad Lover combines baroque emotion with timeless folk melodies. Featuring the evocative music of Henry Purcell, John Eccles, Benjamin Britten and Kate Moore, this program blends the passionate intensity of 17th-century English mad songs with the soulful beauty of traditional folk music. Two of Australia’s leading baroque specialists bring these captivating works to life, traversing centuries to weave a narrative of love, longing, and madness.

 

Saturday 10 May Stanbridge Hall
O SWEET WOODS
Dowland songs of Beauty and Creation
Rosemary Hodgson, lute
Kate Macfarlane, soprano
Christopher Roache, alto and tenor
Timothy Reynolds, tenor
Matthew Champion, bass
Inspired by Sir Philip Sidney’s epic poem Arcadia, comes this ravishing new program by Australia’s premier lutenist, Rosemary Hodgson and esteemed vocalists. O Sweet Woods is a concert presentation celebrating love, nature and the beauty of creation through the music of Renaissance lyricist, John Dowland and his contemporaries. Featuring works for four voices such as Come away, Come sweet love, Go cristall tears and the lyrical Robin is to the Greenwood gone, O Sweet Woods is both intricate and captivating in live performance – a program destined to enchant the mind and melt the soul.

 

Saturday 5 July Christ Church
UNHOLY RACKETT + ENSEMBLE 642
Brock Imison, soprano, alto, bass, quint bass curtal
Simon Rickard, soprano, tenor, bass, octave bass curtal
Laura Vaughan, viola da gamba
Hannah Lane, baroque triple harp
Nick Pollock, theorbo
The seventeenth century began a fascinating period of musical history. The baroque style of composition was emerging from its renaissance roots, but instruments themselves were yet to keep up with the new musical trends. It seems strange to modern ears, but the renaissance bassoon, or curtal, was amongst the favourite woodwind instrument of the earliest baroque composers, due to its surprising expressive capabilities. In this program of early baroque music from Italy, Iberia and Germany, early woodwind ensemble Unholy Rackett are joined by basso continuo specialists Ensemble 642, to recreate a rich sound world all but forgotten today.

 

Saturday 18 October Stanbridge Hall.
THE TUDOR CHORISTERS
Carlos Del Cueto, music director
Founded in 1962, The Tudor Choristers are one of Melbourne’s stalwart and established champions of Rennaisance-era choral music. On this 500th anniversary year for the seminal composer Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina, they will lead us through an afternoon of a capella singing of music by Palestrina and English composers of the Tudor period.

 

Saturday 8 November Christ Church
GENESIS BAROQUE
Death and the Maiden
Anna McMichael and
Jennifer Kirsner, period violins
Meg Cohen, period viola
Josephine Vains, period cello
The highlight of this concert will be Schubert’s famed quartet, Death and the Maiden, written in 1824 when he was in the throes of severe illness and aware of impending mortality, trawls the depths of despair with unparalleled vibrancy and urgency. Experiencing Schubert’s momentous work on gut strings will introduce our audience in the Church to the vivid colours and expressive sensitivities intended, bringing it to new life. Coupled with the wonderfully rich palette of Beethoven’s quartet Opus 18, No.1, the second movement of which depicts the vault scene from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, this program is one not to be missed.

 

BOOKINGS
Tickets $30 Students $15
Full Series Ticket $120
(saving $30)

www.trybooking.com/eventlist/christchurchconcerts 

All concerts commence at 2.30pm and will be held in Christ Church, Daylesford except for O Sweet Woods 10 May and The Tudor Choristers 18 October in W.E. Stanbrige Hall.