The joyous textures of Herbert Howells’ A Hymn for St Cecilia opened Sydney Chamber Choir’s first performance for 2019, Sam Allchurch’s debut as Music Director. Allchurch has big shoes to fill, taking over the choir from the late Richard Gill, but the young conductor – who was also appointed Director of Music at Sydney’s Christ Church St Laurence and Associate Artistic Director at Gondwana Choirs last year – more than delivered the goods in his first outing in the role.

Sydney Chamber Choir’s Music on Music

Music on Music saw Sydney Chamber Choir tackle repertoire from the Renaissance through to 21st-century music by Australian composers, in a multi-layered program of music written about music, but which also – as Allchurch explained in a recent column for Limelight – paid tribute to his predecessors at the choir, from the Renaissance music beloved of Nicholas Routley, to music written by Paul Stanhope, and, of course, Richard Gill, in Elliot Carter’s setting of Emily Dickinson’s poem Musicians Wrestle Everywhere.

The choir was on point, giving a refined performance of William Byrd’s 16th-century Quomodo cantabimus, the weaving lines perfectly balanced as they rung out in...