Astra Season 2026
What times are these, where…
Six concerts with choir, solo vocalists and
a wide spectrum of other performers
experiment and new compositions
cooperations across cultures
environments with technology
past narratives in a radical present
What Times Are These
5pm, Sunday 17 May
Church of All Nations, Carlton
What times are these, where
A conversation about trees is almost a crime
Because it includes silence on so many atrocities!
(Bertolt Brecht, "To Generations Born After" 1939)
Ninety years after Brecht, the need of one generation to account to others unborn is urgent again. Music itself is a constant interplay between generations of composition, poetry and historic experience – a flickering between present and past, with a capacity to express tensions and characters of a coming era.
Two choral trilogies by Australia’s senior composers Helen Gifford (b.1935) and George Dreyfus (b.1928) are the focus of Astra’s first concert for 2026. Each of the two cycles, composed two decades apart, “flickers” between graphic, contemporary musical styles and recollections of drastic historical moments.
Helen Gifford CATHARSIS (2001), three poems for choir
George Dreyfus, THREE PIECES FOR CHOIR (2020–22)
Heinrich Schütz, Gustav Mahler, Max Reger, Alma Mahler, Stefan Wolpe, György Ligeti, Samir Odeh-Tamimi;
poems of Hölderlin, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, Lenau, Falke, Dehmel, Anna Akhmatova, Kathleen Raine, Elizabeth Riddell, Bertolt Brecht, Mahmoud Darwish, George Dreyfus
THE ASTRA CHOIR & SOLOISTS
Kim Bastin and Peter Dumsday (solo piano)
Timothy Phillips (percussion)
conducted by John McCaughey
Patterns of Plants 2
植物文様
Music of Mamoru Fujieda
with traditional Japanese and early music
5:30pm & 8pm, Saturday June 13
Astra continues its collaboration with Japanese composer Mamoru Fujieda in Patterns of Plants 2 (植物文様), the latest chapter in this ongoing project. The program features new vocal arrangements by Fujieda and the debut of Astra's new chamber vocal ensemble, Astral Voices. Performances take place this June at the Hall at Northcote Uniting Church.
At the heart of the project is a cross-cultural ensemble bringing together musicians from Australia and Japan. Traditional Japanese instruments (kotoand shō) are heard alongside early music instruments (viola da gamba, baroque violin and recorder). The result is a highly distinctive sound world, drawing on centuries of Japanese and European musical tradition.
These new multi-voice works by Fujieda, performed by Astral Voices, build on material created for this ensemble since 2023, including a 2025 Tasmanian tour. The program also draws on selections from Fujieda’s long-running Patterns of Plants series, as well as music spanning centuries and cultures — from Northern European baroque solos and duos to traditional Japanese repertoire.
Developed over more than three decades, Patterns of Plants draws on electrical signals recorded from plant leaves using the "Plantron" device, translating subtle fluctuations into delicate, evolving musical forms that reveal hidden patterns within the natural world.
Miyama McQueen-Tokita, koto & voice
Laura Vaughan, viola da gamba
Julia Fredersdorff, baroque violin
Brandon Lee, koto
Ryan Williams, recorders
Henry Liang, sho
Alexander Ritter, countertenor
with
ASTRAL VOICES
Lily Flynn, soprano
Catrina Seiffert, soprano
Alexander Ritter, alto
Alex Gorbatov, tenor
Directed by Andrew Byrne
