about astra

The Astra Chamber Music Society is primarily a concert organization for choral music and contemporary performance, presenting an annual subscription season in Melbourne. Our further activities extend to publishing of scores and an Astra CD recording label. Concerts are centred on the work of the Astra Choir, and bring together a characteristic blend of new music with unusual repertoire from the past. From the choral medium, with all its huge variety of repertoire and spatial possibilities, Astra programs branch out to instrumental performances from guest artists, and to interactions of live music with other media - electro-acoustics, movement and the spoken word.

Astra concerts seek to extend the boundaries of conventional choral performance, often moving into areas of theatre and text as part of the concert experience. New and little-known works from all musical periods form the repertoire, frequently receiving their first Australian performances. Recent Astra concerts have ranged from mediaeval tropes through nineteenth-century oratorio (Carl Loewe) to twentieth century political music (Dessau, Eisler), recent European and American music (Carter, Polansky, Kagel) and the latest in Australian composition. Each Astra program is planned as an event that engages the audience with the stimulus of contrasting materials, with the possibility to learn something new from the sound of voices in changing configurations of style, space and other sound sources.

The inventive use of architectural environments is also an important feature - each concert is designed as an event in which different program elements interact with each other and with the performance space itself. Astra was among the first performing groups in the 1980s to use such spaces as the North Melbourne Town Hall, the Customs House, the State Library Dome, Gasworks Theatre and the Meat Market Craft Centre. A recent program in the 2003 season made dramatic use of the multiform space of Queen's Hall Parliament House.

From its regular performances in inner city locations in Melbourne, Astra has developed a significant national profile as an innovative force in Australian music. Commissions of new works from Australian composers played an important part in the concerts over many years. Astra has received some prominent national awards for its work, including one of the inaugural Sidney Myer National Performing Arts Awards in 1987.

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Astra history and background

Astra was formed in 1951 as an orchestra of women musicians under the direction of Asta Flack, a violinist and conductor who had migrated to Australia from Lithuania. In 1958, George Logie-Smith became Musical Director, extending the orchestra to include male members and a larger wind section and founding the Astra Choir. Over a period of 20 years, he developed links with Australian composers as well as giving performance of choral and chamber orchestral repertoire rarely heard at that time (for example the Bach Passions, Stravinsky's Les Noces, works of Bartok, Britten, Penderecki.)

Since John McCaughey became Musical Director in 1978 (continuing to the present), the Astra Choir has provided the principal focus of concerts, joined by many of Australia's leading contemporary instrumental performers as guests.

Robert Smallwood was Director of Astra in the period 1983-4, and other guest directors (Joan Pollock, Graeme Leak, Kenneth Gaburo, Sue Healey, Anne Thompson, William Henderson and Allan Walker) have extended the Choir's work into the domains of film, dance and improvisation.

Astra's contribution to the advancement of Australian music has been recognised with a number of prizes including the Sidney Myer national Performing Arts Award 1987, the Australian Music Centre's 1998 National Award for the Best Australian Composition (for Lawrence Whiffin's 'Murchitt - a Daydream'), and the 2000 National and Victorian Awards for Outstanding Contribution to Australian Music to Astra's Director, John McCaughey.

Some recent performances

A brief survey of recent seasons indicates something of the range of works performed in this context:

• A-50 (October 2001) Astra's 50th anniversary concert brought together a 'choirscape' of 50 short pieces, most of them written for the occasion by composers from several countries, interspersed with representative 'masterworks' from Ockeghem and Bach to Schoenberg, Berg and Kagel;
• Large chamber works, many receiving their first Australian performances: Lawrence Whiffin (Concerto for Violin and 5 Instruments), Elliott Carter (Brass Quintet), Schoenberg (Wind quintet), Ruth Crawford (various), Stefan Wolpe (various), Johanna Beyer, Graeme Leak and Vanessa Tomlinson;
• Large and medium-scale new Australian choral works: Martin Friedel (Cities of the Mind), Helen Gifford (Choral Scenes), Andrew Byrne (Force), Elizabeth Drake (Miles to Furphy), Keith Humble (In Pace, and Three Nocturnes), Graham Hair (Lament for S. Sofia);
• First Australian performances of earlier historical choral works, including Hildegard von Bingen, Leonhard Lechner, Carl Loewe, Edvard Grieg, Percy Grainger, Ruth Crawford, Johanna Beyer, Paul Hindemith, Paul Dessau, Hanns Eisler, Stefan Wolpe, Kurt Schwitters, Sven-David Sandström, Knut Nystedt.

Concert personnel

Guest soloists, instrumentalists and vocalists, are employed on a contract basis, as determined by the concert program. Our production, technical, design and front-of-house team, including sound engineer Michael Hewes and the Production manager, are also engaged on a contract basis.

Astra staff

Astra Board - 2008-9