Festival of Voices “slightly unusual concert,” proves to be just that.

Federation Concert Hall, Hobart

9 July, 2014

Conductor Brett Kelly was not half wrong when he described Two Choirs as One as a “slightly unusual concert.” The two ‘choirs’ were the TSO Brass & Percussion and the TSO Chorus, and with some musicians positioned on stage and others in balcony seating, I was unsure of what to expect from the outset. Unfortunately, though, the evening did not necessarily leave me pleasantly surprised.

The performance opened with Giovanni Gabrieli’s ‘Canzon Duodecimi Toni’. Though regal and proud, the higher tones of the brass ensemble were stolen away by the acoustics of the hall, and changes in dynamic equated to occasional booms of sound. These acoustics posed further issues in Thompson’s Pueri Hebraeorum, when the choir members who sang from the balcony faced toward the stage rather than directing their singing at the audience, creating a wash of sound lacking in definition. Despite this unconventional staging, the benefit of placing half the choir upstairs and half on stage was that it was visually appealing and sent the music soaring in unusual directions across the hall.

After the Thompson, the beginning of what seemed like...