Our Purpose
The Song Company is Australia’s leading vocal ensemble. It embraces music from around the world and across the ages. In collaboration with artists of the highest calibre, it aims to create a distinctive and dynamic new voice, relevant to the audiences of today and tomorrow.
Our Story
Formed by Charles Colman in 1984, The Song Company is a group of six full-time professional singers led by internationally acclaimed Artistic Director, Roland Peelman. It gives approximately 130 performances each year across Australia and around the world.
The Song Company has developed as one of the most vibrant and extraordinary vocal ensembles in the world. The group’s repertoire covers vocal music from the 10th century to the present day and is unique in its stylistic diversity. With the support of The Australia Council and Arts NSW, the company operates full-time. Through a longstanding commitment to education, an annual concert series, as well as many recordings and broadcasts, The Song Company has built up an impressive following around Australia, and increasingly so, around the world.
Under the leadership of Roland Peelman, Artistic Director since 1990, the six-voice ensemble has developed its style by successfully integrating serious scholarship, tonal clarity, vocal daring and unbridled performance dynamics. The group is equally at home in medieval songs and chants, 16th-century polyphony, 20th-century classics and creates innovative programs that cross the old divide between high-art and low-brow and old/new.
The Song Company remains at the forefront of contemporary vocal music through an extensive and ongoing international commissioning program and new collaborations. Six Hermits (2003) involved six Chinese musicians on traditional instruments. The relationship with Australia’s most prominent poet Les Murray is ongoing and involves composers from around the globe. Spanning over three years, the Tenebrae project with Dance Company Force Majeure directed by Kate Champion has been described variously as ‘sensational’ or as a “benchmark for artistic collaboration”. After seeing the second work on Good Friday 2006, Peter McCallum commented in the Sydney Morning Herald that “while last year’s creation was a triumph of innovation, this year’s surpassed it for its unified cohesiveness”.
“This (2009), is the Song Company’s 25th anniversary and the Tenebrae series is one of its most impressive productions – not just from them, but from any music or arts group in this city, touching the spirit as it has with memories of things rich and strange.” Peter McCallum on Tenebrae III
Of the 2009, Kalkadunga Man tour with didgeridoo player and composer William Barton:
“Kalkadunga Man is a fascinating and moving attempt to reconnect, not just with Barton’s heritage, but with the way sounds become meaning and meaning becomes culture… Add The Song Company’s fond characterisations and you end up with a vivid slice of a past life.” Harriet Cunningham, Sydney Morning Herald (2009)
Regular international tours to Europe and Asia have taken The Song Company to some of the most prestigious festivals and venues around the world such as the Dubrovnik Festival, MDR Sommerfest, Festival of Flanders or the Dresdner Festspiele which have prompted great critical acclaim: “Their rendition was perfect, revealing a structural insight of utmost clarity (…) bringing back history unexpectedly fresh and alive.” (Sachsische Zeitung, June 2004).
