Photo of Sydney Chamber Choir with Sam Allchurch on spiral wooden staircase

Sydney Chamber Choir

We are passionate about choral music and its unique ability to celebrate and reflect upon the stories of our past, present and future.

We love to travel deep inside the music to meet the composers and bring their vision alive in sound. We reach back to explore the masterpieces of the Baroque and the Renaissance, while also championing the music of our own time and place, regularly commissioning works by established and emerging Australian composers.

In recent years, the Choir has premiered new works by Brenda Gifford, Ella Macens, Harry Sdraulig, Brooke Shelley, Paul Stanhope, Joseph Twist and Elizabeth Younan. In both 2022 and 2023, the Art Music Award for Choral Work of the Year was given to works written for and premiered by us: Paul Stanhope's Requiem, and Heather Percy's Three Night Songs. In 2025, we commissioned new pieces by Luke Byrne, Anne Cawrse, Meta Cohen, Nardi Simpson and Paul Stanhope to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our founding in 1975.

Over our 50-year history, we have been honoured to work with guest conductors such as Carl Crossin, Roland Peelman, Elizabeth Scott and Brett Weymark, as well as our three previous directors, Nicholas Routley, Paul Stanhope and the late Richard Gill AO.

We collaborate with leading Australian ensembles and instrumentalists, including the Australian Haydn Ensemble, the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, Slava Grigoryan, the Orchestra of the Antipodes, Synergy Percussion, Joseph Tawadros and The Muffat Collective. We also enjoy more unconventional partnerships, including concerts with the Hilltop Hoods, The Idea of North and the Sydney Mardi Gras Community Choir.

We appeared at the 2023 Adelaide Chamber Choir Festival, the 2022 Canberra International Music Festival and the 2021 Sydney Festival, and we tour regularly in regional NSW, most recently to Goulburn in 2024. We have sung in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the UK, and in 2009 the choir was a prizewinner in the Tolosa International Choral Competition in Spain. In May 2025, we returned to Europe, giving concerts in Berlin, Hannover and Leipzig, including in the famed Gewandhaus with Ensemble Nobiles and the GewandhausChor.

Our performances have been broadcast on ABC Classic, 2MBS Fine Music Sydney and Australian Digital Concert Hall, and our CD recordings are available on the ABC Classic and Tall Poppies labels, and via download and streaming services. Our most recent recording - of Paul Stanhope’s Requiem - was released in 2025.

Video of Sydney Chamber Choir singing Rise Up, My Love by Healey Willan

Our People

  • Artistic Director – Sam Allchurch

  • Principal Rehearsal Pianist – Jem Harding

  • President – Christopher Matthies

  • Vice President – Amanda Durham

  • Secretary – Megan Cronin

  • Treasurer – Chris Othen

  • Committee member – Ria Andriani

  • Committee member and Philanthropy Manager – Kristen Butchatsky

  • Committee member and Marketing Coordinator - Matthew Flood

Photo of chorister in left profile

“When a group is together long enough that there is mutual trust both between members of the group and the group and their audience, it allows introverted voices and more complex ideas to blossom.  The expression of these ideas is the intangible thing that keeps all of us (onstage and off stage) captivated in Sydney Chamber Choir concerts.”

Wei Jiang
Soprano