Lament to Light traces a compelling journey from sorrow to illumination across three centuries of vocal music. Presented by The Opera and Song Collective at St Luke’s Anglican Church, Mosman, the programme explores how composers transform grief into consolation and hope.
Beginning with the expressive intensity of Monteverdi and Purcell, the concert moves through the refined inwardness of Reynaldo Hahn and the redemptive warmth of Schumann’s O heil’ge Tränen inn’ger Reu from his secular oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri. Romantic breadth unfolds in selections from Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Schubert’s luminous Nachthelle, while excerpts from Fauré’s Requiem offer serenity rather than drama.

Vaughan Williams, Britten and Ravel broaden the expressive palette further. Curated by Dr Jill Sullivan and performed without interval under Maestro Simon Kenway with Stephen Walter at the piano, the concert unfolds as a single arc — leading from lament into light.