Amongst a limited Adelaide Festival classical program, a small local component still manages to shine.

St Peter’s Cathedral, Adelaide

March 5, 2014

Whilst the music section of Adelaide Festivals curated by David Sefton has been cut considerably – gone are the opera and orchestral concerts – an emphasis on string quartets and Adelaide’s own acclaimed Chamber Singers thankfully continues. The late night offerings in St Peter’s Cathedral by the chamber choir, remain musical highlights with two concerts covering the complete motets by JS Bach.

With minimum fuss and almost minuscule conducting from Carl Crossin, it became immediately apparent that this internationally award winning chamber choir had these concentrated and often difficult works completely within their control and ken with the right balance of contrapuntal weight and tautness nearly always apparent throughout.

Given the complexity and drama, not to mention the sheer mastery of Bach’s writing, Crossin was indeed correct in programming them over two concerts, whilst adding excerpts from perhaps the greatest of Bach’s solo masterpieces for solo violin – the (in)famous virtuosic Chaconne as well as the Sarabande and Gigue from the Second Partita – impeccably played by baroque specialist Lucinda Moon. And of course it almost goes without saying just...