Dove and D’Netto: The Passing of the Year

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Stories and seasons are always connected – they affect our moods, our intentions, metaphors for the passing time in our lives, and our ability to get out of bed in the morning. This concert presents premieres of stories and seasons, firstly the world premiere extension of composer Connor D’Netto’s work Stove Photography and the Melbourne premiere of Jonathan Dove’s minimalist masterwork The Passing of the Year. Join the most exciting young chamber choir in Australia – Divisi Chamber Singers – as they tell two captivating stories, one contemporary and one eternal at their second annual appearance at the fortyfivedownstairs chamber music festival.

Tickets here

World premieres and old favourites on Saturday 3 Feb

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TICKETS

Divisi, in collaboration with Melbourne Recital Centre for Midsumma 2024, present a vibrant program of classical vocal music by three major, award-winning Australian queer composers – Meta Cohen, Sally Whitwell and Connor D’Netto.

Two of these names, Meta and Sally should be pretty familiar to long-time listeners and Connor D’Netto is new to us but not new to the country being labelled by ABC classic as “the model contemporary Australian composer.” Having an opportunity to perform ‘a love is a love is a love’ and Spectrum again is terribly exciting. Re-performing and giving life to this music which tells enchanting stories never before told by classical music. Connor’s new work, a world premiere and commission by Divisi and Coady Green, will bring to live the stories of Bastian Fox Phelan as told in Maeve Marsden’s Queer Stories podcast. Check it out here, or come to the concert.

Performers

Alex Gorbatov voice
Bailey Montgomerie voice
Alex Ritter voice
Anish Nair voice
Marjorie Butcher voice
Monika Harris voice
Coady Green piano

Program

Meta Cohen
a love is a love is a love

Connor D’Netto
Stove Photography

Sally Whitwell
Spectrum

Listen here

June programs!

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Glitter and be Gay!

Divisi is trying something new for Tempo Queer. Four of our singers will take some of their favorite jazz standards and theatre songs and give them a contemporary-queer makeover. We want to put these songs to the test of time and give some of them a makeover suitable of Queer Eye for a saucy and sometimes emotional new look. 

Join us for a silly, confronting, and camp evening.

Performed by:
Alex Gorbatov
Marjorie Butcher
Bailey Montgomerie
Alexandra Amerides
Coady Green 

TICKETS HERE

Divisi’s debut in Melbourne Recital Centre’s Primrose Potter Salon explores the intrigue of madrigals, taking six narrators’ individual interpretations and coordinating them into a beautiful, cohesive story. Divisi Chamber Singers will take four hundred years of madrigal storytelling tradition and weave masterworks with contemporary comparisons. Ben Rowarth’s The Turn, an Australian premiere, gives further context to Monteverdi’s Lamento D’Arianna. Gavin Bryars’ madrigals shed more light on ancient poetry with intricate contemporary harmony.

Challenging its singers’ virtuosic abilities, we hope to provide audiences with an experience of storytelling that transcends time and style, telling ancient stories in modern ways.

TICKETS HERE

Mass For Hustlers – December 2 and 3

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God is dead and the modern hustler is turning to someone even bigger and better; herself. Mass for Hustlers is a Catholic Mass-cum-self improvement seminar with a satirical twist. The show is led by emerging theatre performer Clare Taylor, with music written by celebrated Australian composer Sally Whitwell and performed by the Divisi Chamber Singers. Playing at the MC Showroom from December 2nd to 3rd. 

Meet Clare Taylor, creator of the Taylor Method™, a patented physical and spiritual guidance program with a cult following – and she’s prepared the seminar of a lifetime. Surrounded by her trusty backup dancers/choir/cult followers (Divisi), Clare takes us through the most important tenets of the Taylor Method™, from exercise and meditation to fierce self-reflection. But suddenly, something goes badly wrong… How does Clare stay true to her mantra when she physically can’t? 

Mass for Hustlers reflects on our uncomfortable relationship with modern doctrines of self-improvement. Prepare to experience high-octane choreography, hypnotizing sermons, and transcendent new music by Sally Whitwell performed by Divisi Chamber Singers, you’ll exit a true believer.

Tickets here

JONAH – New commissions and ancient masterpieces

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Fri, 28 October 7:30 pm Sun, 30 October 3:00 pm Collingwood Town Hall Jonah - a collaboration between Divisi and Ensemble Ancien.

Divisi is joined by Ensemble Ancien to perform an exciting new work by emerging composer Christopher Healey with new text by Rose Forrest inspired by Historia Di Jonas, a striking oratorio by Giulio Carissimi.

Enjoy a relaxing hour being serenaded by delicious 17th Century songs, and witness the world premiere of Healey and Forrest’s unique new work that offers a modern reflection on the book of Jonah.

Register on Eventbrite

Queer ❤ Songs Program

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Get your tickets before its too late

Program

I am who I amCaerwen Martin
The Splendour of Lying Naked in the Sun:Cameron Lam
I The Sun Came Out”
II The Desire”
III Blood Red, Leaves Green”
IV Hiding Nothing”
A Love is a Love is a Love:Meta Cohen
I You”
II They”
III She”
IV We”
Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan
XV(a) The Years		Joseph Twist

I AM WHO I AM (2021)

Music by Caerwen Martin (she/her), Text by Gail Martin (Arr. Alex Gorbatov)

Commissioned by Miranda Hill for Homophonic!, and re-orchestrated by Alexander Gorbatov for Divisi Chamber Singers, is based on conversations with career soldier, Yvonne Sillett, about her profound experience of discrimination in the Australian Army. Yvonne was demoted and vilified in her profession specifically because she was gay. This discrimination impacted Yvonne’s career outcomes, her mental health, her relationships, and the course of her life but, by telling her story publicly, Yvonne has helped and empowered countless other people in the LGBTIQ+ community to deal with their own experiences of discrimination and oppression. I am who I am focuses on our self-respect, and the decisions we make under duress that uphold the value we have for ourselves and who we are, even in the face of adversity. The lyrics, written by Gail, speak to my own discovery of self-respect.

The Splendour of lying naked in the sun

Music by Cameron Lam (he/him), Text by Salvatore Scibona

The Splendour of Lying Naked in the Sun is an ode to our ordinary bodies and the incredible universe we find ourselves living in.

I The Sun Came Out
The opening movement, The Sun Came Out is a dreamy reminiscence of the author’s college days and first days of Spring – languidly wanting to soak up mild heat and sunlight all over. “resenting no one and nothing except my clothes, which I badly wanted to take off”

II The Desire
The second movement, The Desire, becomes sinuous and yearning as we delve headfirst into the desire to be naked in the sun, “it feels as innate and universal as thirst”. The singers slide and blur into each other creating rippling layers in energetic short movement.

III Blood Red, Leaves Green
The author notes “haemoglobin and chlorophyll resemble each other almost exactly” that what makes our blood red, lets plants ‘eat the sunshine’. The third movement, Blood Red, Leaves Green is zooms telescopically from atoms to cells to larger thoughts in bed of playful minimalism.

IV Hiding Nothing
The final movement, Hiding Nothing, is both personal and cosmic, spacious and spiritual, full of silence and rich harmonic textures. I think the author Salvatore Scibona puts it best: “Your unexceptional body, your only creature — is living its only life. Right now. Hiding nothing from the ongoing explosion that started it and sustains it.”

A love is a love is a love

Music by Meta Cohen (they/she)

This song cycle is a love letter to queerness and the LGBTQIA+ community.

In writing a cycle of queer love songs, it was very important to me that the pieces explore different kinds of love. Queerness has historically been censored or relegated to the margins, so I wanted to insist on queer sexual desire and romantic love being present, centred and witnessed. Equally important, however, are other kinds of queer connections: platonic love; friendships; kinship between queer people; and perhaps more deeply a love of queerness itself and the experience of navigating the world as a queer person.


In a sense, perhaps these are more songs on love than ‘love songs’ – I was reluctant to write a set of ballads, and wanted instead to challenge what you might expect from a love song. The result is four songs that are stylistically quite diverse but share common threads and bleed across each other. I worked with four amazing queer Australian poets to explore these different intersections of queerness and love and encouraged them not to shy away from the complexities these might raise.


The cycle’s title – an homage to the wonderful lesbian modernist writer Gertrude Stein – reflects these intricate and complex relationships. Riffing off ‘love is love’ – a phrase often crucially used in equal rights campaigns as a strategy to make adversaries of queerness see our love as equivalent (or perhaps equally ‘worthy’ of the term) – this cycle instead looks to position queer love as not ‘equivalent’ to straight love, but rather its own rich world.

One queer love is not another; queer love cannot be flattened into one homogenous group, so while these songs might share the common thread of queerness, each one can only evoke the particular experience of its makers. These pieces are not made to be a monolithic representation of queer love: they are an invitation to continue exploring its infinite different facets.

This project could go on endlessly. My deepest thanks to Divisi Chamber Singers and Coady Green-Smith for their championing of new queer work and their insistence of the place of queerness in the classical music canon. My thanks also to the ABC for the opportunity to create this piece.

I you

Text by Nikki Vivika

Some of the deepest queer encounters and friendships begin online.


you – the first song in the cycle – evokes the intimacy of midnight messenger windows, screen glows and keyboard clicks. Nikki Viveca’s text explores sharing a queer experience with someone you’ve never met in person, and the ways in which we choose to disclose queerness to those we trust. These people might not always be the people around us, so I was very interested in the bespoke intimacy of being close with someone far away.


you explores the specific type of love and understanding between queer people who might share common experiences, whether this be of lost dreams by day, or by the trusting of a secret name not yet known to anyone else by night.

II they

Text by Vi Hu

The second song in the cycle – they – is about the buzzing of anonymous encounters and the different faces one might meet (and take on) across a queer life. Where the first song dealt with intimacy between people known to each other (if only online), Vi Hu’s text explores connection found among the anonymous many, evoking a flurry of night-time activity, heat and sex that dissolves at daybreak. To some listeners, this might conjure the world of cruising, saunas and hookups, and others might find very different resonances – eye contact made across a room at a queer event, brief overlaps between queer people. What is common is the fluttering excitement – and sometimes overwhelm – of these queer encounters, be these sexual or otherwise. Within the tapestry of different faces are also the ones we take on ourselves, presenting differently in each different encounter.


Amongst this throbbing energy, there are also quiet moments of connection – in this case, in a love duet sung between the bass and baritone voices. I hope these moments of contemplation, where norms are challenged, might allow us to see the world around us differently – if only for an instant.


The song places us in a world known only to the community experiencing it, and completely inscrutable to the outside world. In this sense, they is an ode to lives lived outside of heteronormative expectations.

III she

Text by Savanna Wegman

she is the third song in the cycle. It might be the most sapphic thing I have ever written.


Set to text by Savanna Wegman, she is about intimacy: the intimacy of breath and the little things you notice about someone when you feel something for them. But while it is undoubtedly about these small details, I also wanted it to feel elemental and sublime, and guide us to unexpected places.

In a sense, she is an incantation that might hark back to Sappho – one of the earliest queer women we know of – and the thing I love most about her writing: the beautiful balance of reverence, awe and desire.

IV we

we is about queer kinship, visibility and finding yourself. Leona Cohen’s text explores the different ways in which we might look around as queer people: in fear; to search for those like us; in realisation; and then – hopefully – in ecstatic awe and delight at the queer people surrounding us. At the heart of this song is visibility: the importance of being seen – rather than looked at – and seeing people like you.


we is an expression of love for the experience of finding queer ways of existing in the world, while not ignoring their challenges. In this final song of the cycle, fragments of melodies found in other movements make their way back into the music. I wanted to end with the utopian joy of discovering queerness – a potential ‘at the edges of perception’, barely imaginable, and then abundantly, joyfully present.

Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan

Music by Joseph Twist

XV(a) The Years

In 1972, Dr. George Ian Ogilvie Duncan, a lecturer at the University of Adelaide was attacked at a gay beat, thrown into the River Torrens and drowned. 50 years on, Joe Twist’s new oratorio Watershed: The Death of Dr. Duncan, shines a light into this appalling story and how his death changed Australia and led to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in South Australia and then the whole country. This movement of the work was actually cut from the premiere meaning that this movement is a world premiere!

The full work was premiered this month at Adelaide Festival to raving reviews, it was jointly commissioned by South Australian State Opera, Adelaide Festival, and Feast Festival. The composer kindly agreed to licence this movement to Divisi for its premiere.

Queer ❤ Songs

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Quick concert! The Lieder Society of Victoria and Chapel off Chapel has presented us with an opportunity to present two world premiere’s at their incredible venue by Naarm (Melbourne based) composers.

Firstly, Meta Cohen’s queer song cycle A Love Is A Love Is A Love. We recorded this at the ABC to go on classic FM in May and gave you a little hint of this at our March concert. Come hear all four movements of this ground-breaking work.

Secondly, Cameron Lam’s new vocal cycle The Splendour of Lying Naked in the Sun. Taking text from Salvatore Scibona’s short story by the same name, this multi-movement work explores themes of self-identify and ones relationship with your body. Most importantly, the peace of lying naked in the sun.

These two premieres will be interspersed by works by Caerwen Martin, Joseph Twist and Gavin Bryars for an exciting reflection on what art song can be!

Reminder that you can claim 25% on your tickets through the Victorian Dining and Entertainment program!

Tickets here!

Spectrum: Lyrics and more information

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Spectrum (2020)

Music by Sally Whitwell (she/her), Text by Sally Whitwell and Monique Duval (she/her)

As a composer, I feel I always need to be working. I like to work on my skills, on my composing craft, on keeping the creative ideas flowing. So occasionally I set myself assignments, which is how this song cycle Spectrum came to be. The first song I composed, Yellow, was originally commissioned by Annie Kwok for her students at Brighton Secondary School, Adelaide. I loved the way their chosen text by Monique Duval actually sounded like the colour yellow. I’m synaesthetic and D major sounds yellow to me, so I set the text in that key. It then occurred to me that setting myself a composing assignment of interpreting the colours of the rainbow flag might be a nice idea. Because, I am so gay. The cycle is not actually LGBTQ+ themed in subject matter, the flag was just a kind of framework for my creativity.

The first movement, Red was inspired by an animated video of red blood-cells coursing down an Artery. Orange (Torch Song) was loosely inspired by my love of TV screenwriter Denis Potter’s magic realism, and heralds the sudden arrival of a 1930’s redhead femme fatale. It’s since been reworked for my second stage musical Fairytale Derail. Yellow is a setting of a joyous poem by Monique Duval about getting caught in a sun shower on the beach. Green was inspired by a beautiful day spent with my partner Glennda and our excellent friend, and composer Stephen Leek. He took us to see the centuries old trees in the rainforest of Liffey Falls, Tasmania. Blue was inspired by an early summer walk around the cliffs surrounding Sydney’s Coogee Beach. Purple (The Aubergine Queen) was loosely inspired by the pageantry and downright lies of the USA presidential campaigns. I get the feeling that many Americans secretly love the idea of monarchy, so they attempt to recreate the grandeur of those traditions and kind of, well, fail​. 

  – Sally Whitwell

1. Red

Text and music by Sally Whitwell
Red river of life
Red runs in the veins
Red turns the mill that pumps the heart
Red river it flows
Red beneath the skin
Red turns the mill that pumps the heart
And the fire and the spark
And the fire and the zip zap zoom!
Red liquid energy
Red runs in the veins
Red pulse is powered through the limbs
Red liquid energy
Red feeding the core
Red pulse is powered through the limbs
And the fire and the spark
And the fire and the zip zap zoom!
You know the one
The one with the Xray vision
Sees straight through your position
Despite all your protestation
They know you.

2. Orange (torch song)

Text and music by Sally Whitwell
Down the twisting staircase
Cascading auburn curls
Fire in the eyes
Penetrates your disguise
Russet fur unfurled.
Ochre road to burning sun
Does not lead where you think.
Are you thirsting for the new,
A sour, acidic drink,
So piquant you salivate
For it’s acrid ginger bite?
This glowing sphere absorbed the sun.
Go on, sip that burning light!

I’m fast falling into flames
Can’t you hear me scream?
Scorching, blistering
I didn’t know it was her scheme
To send me to this purgatory
My very soul combusts
For one delicious moment
Of lewd luxurious lust.
But don’t think her self destructive
For the Phoenix legend’s true
She’ll be kindled in the ashes
A spirit thus renewed.

3. Yellow Rain

Text by Monique Duval, Music by Sally Whitwell
That’s when the rain came down
And we ran, laughing hard, sides hurting
And there was no shelter for miles
So we just sat down on the sand
And watched the ocean swallow the sky.

4. Green

Text and music by Sally Whitwell
Fingers stretching out, unfurling into air
Curls from a head of shining emerald hair
Electric jade neon throbs against the sky
Reaching for the sun although she cannot fly
From under the crust through thickening air
Navigating currents where breathing is rare
Shield of protection, crisp slow flaking skin
Falls silent to earth, reveals soft flesh within.

5. Blue
Text and music by Sally Whitwell
What could pierce this azure dome?
Dare it interrupt this perfection?
Not a cloud upon the endless blue
Above a sapphire sea
It’s the gentlest ebb and flow
Fingers of foam caress the shoreline
The haze on the horizon
Speaks of mystery unknown
One lone swimmer negotiates undulations
In turquoise blue

6. Purple (The Aubergine Queen)
Text and music by Sally Whitwell
All hail the aubergine queen
Bow down as she advances
Do you see her smile so benevolent?
Her Imperial Highness so resplendent.
Plush deep purple velvet o’er a shimmering lilac gown.
Sharply glints an amethyst atop her golden crown.
All hail!
Rise up and follow, don’t be left behind
By the procession so majestic down the boulevardes so fine.
Loyal subjects, left and right, violet flags they wave
Proud palominos pull the golden carriages of fools and knaves
Do you blithely believe she cares for how you live?
You brainwashed Pollyannas! She has so much to give
But she’ll not share a penny with the vast plebeian throng.
Perhaps it’s time to recognise that you were always wrong?
All hail!

Are You The New Person Drawn Towards Me? (2021)

Music by Ariel Bonnell (she/her), Text by Walt Whitman and Ariel Bonnell

“Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?” considers stereotypical expectations of how queer people should present their identity – ideas held by both queer and non-queer people. These physical markers can be useful within the LGBTQ+ community as concise indicators of someone’s sexuality, but may also conflict with one’s unique self-expression. These ideas must be challenged in order to freely experience one’s own identity, and to connect with others beyond superficial traits. 

“Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?” (1860) – Walt Whitman with additional text by Ariel Bonnell
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose;
Do you support you will find me in your ideal?
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy’d satisfaction?
Do you think I am trusty and faithful?
Do you see no further than this façade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me?
Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man?
Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?

Flannel
Hot shorts
Undercuts
Rainbow hair
Right ear piercing
Lisp
Loose wrists
Vests
Button ups

Here Is A Safe Place (2021)

Music by Lore Burns (they/them), Text by Lore Burns
Here is a Safe Place began as a desire to write something gentle and enveloping for the queer community – a bespoke choral piece speaking of love and safety in a world that is often absent of either. The melody is therefore mostly a simple journey with some suspensions and bittersweet moments alluding to where the listener may have come from before entering the piece. The tone chimes and 3/4 time signature are intended to soothe the audience and create the impression of safety, with the bell-like sound also contributing to an ethereal atmosphere reinforced with breath and a warm singing tone.

Come all you weary warriors
Here is a safe place
Rest with both eyes closed
Without judgement, without fear
You broken-hearted, aching souls
Put down your heavy burdens
Here is a safe place

Syrup and Silicone (2021)

Music by Robert McIntyre (he/him), Text by Savanna Wegman (she/her)

Syrup And Silicone is centred on the narrative of internal standards within the queer community – reflecting on past experiences of being told “you’re not gay enough”, “you’re not really gay” and so on. 

The queer community is a beautiful, vibrant one with so much diversity – like a rich, sweet syrup. Yet, what can also foster an internal marginalisation, and a certain adhesive, plastic fakeness – like silicone. The work is highly personal, questioning the irony of such an accepting community creating such a need to conform to a set of criteria, instead of thriving in our individuality. For me, my sexuality as a gay man is a part of my identity, but by no means my whole identity and I believe it is paramount to let anyone within the queer community freely determine that themselves.

The work sets a commissioned poem by Naarm (Melbourne, Aus) based artist, writer and theatre practitioner Savanna Wegman, a close colleague and friend.

My Hands are wide open

They read soft perfumed palms, primed for an encounter.

Searchlights that look too closely, (for) too long

Smooth me into marble, a figure I can’t recognise

I wait for calm and comfort in the dawn,

Suspended in syrup and silicone

(i)dentity (2021)

Music by Meta Cohen (she/they), Text by Gertrude Stein

What makes you you?

I’m Meta. You can call me Meta or M. You can call me she/her or they/them. You can callme Austrian or Australian. You can call me a composer, or a theatre-maker, or something in between. 

I’m not very often just one thing – I’m not sure many of us are. So I wrote this piece as a wayof unpacking my own queer hybridity. And for me there is no better writer to choose for this than Gertrude Stein, a lesbian modernist writing in the 30s who exploded everything. For this piece, I have chosen a text that is another hybrid thing – somewhere in between a poem and a play.

(i)dentity explores some of my questions about rigid identities and labels, and above all, the language we use to talk about other people. On the one hand, defining identity is very important strategically for us as queer people for civil rights, and a sense of self, in a world that rendered us invisible for a long time (and still punishes a failure to conform). But on the other hand, I wanted to explore my own resistance to rigid categories that simplify the complexities of my particular queerness.

(i)dentity questions the set of assumptions we bring into any interaction, as soon as someone walks into a room. It acknowledges the seriousness and difficulty of (not) knowing who you are, but also, ultimately, the joy and playfulness in subverting expectations and thinking about the vast spectrum of identities that might be available to us.

I am I because my little dog knows me.

I am I yes sir I am I.

I am I yes madame am I I.

When I am I am I I.

And my little dog is not the same thing as I am I.

Chorus: Oh is it.

With tears in my eyes oh is it.

Yes madame or am I I.

I am I because my little dog knows me.

Which one is there I am I or another one.

Who is one and one or one is one.

I am I because my little dog knows me, but perhaps he does not and if he did I would not be

I.

And here we have the whole thing

Am I I.

Yes sir am I I.

I am I yes sir I am I.

I am I yes madame am I I.

But not I.

Without tears but not I.

I Am Who I Am (2021)

Music by Caerwen Martin (she/her), Text by Yvonne Sillett 

(Arr. Alex Gorbatov)

Commissioned by Miranda Hill for Homophonic!, and reorchestrated by Alexander Gorbatov for Divisi Chamber Singers, is based on conversations with career soldier, Yvonne Sillett, about her profound experience of discrimination in the Australian Army. Yvonne was demoted and vilified in her profession specifically because she was gay. This discrimination impacted Yvonne’s career outcomes, her mental health, her relationships, and the course of her life but, by telling her story publicly, Yvonne has helped and empowered countless other people in the LGBTIQ+ community to deal with their own experiences of discrimination and oppression. I am who I am focuses on our self-respect, and the decisions we make under duress that uphold the value we have for ourselves and who we are, even in the face of adversity. The lyrics, written by Gail, speak to my own discovery of self-respect.

I am what I am,

I love who I love.

Oh, I want me, 

I’ll have my life thank you!

I am what I am, 

I’ll feel what I have to.

Oh, I choose love,

I’ll take passion.

“Where have you been?”

“Who have you been with?”

“Where have you hidden?”

“Who did you lie with?”

I choose love.

Or I’ll take my life. 

I choose love.

Let me be with who I want to.

Who I want to.

Who I care for.

Who I dream of.

Let me be who I always was,

I choose love!

I am who I am,

I love who I love.

Oh, I want me,

I’ll have my life, thank you!

I am who I am,

I’ll feel what I have to.

I want love.

I’ll take passion.

I am who I am,

I am love.

I live.

Take back what I need to live my life,

Thank you!

Pre-order Divisi’s debut album today!

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We have been keeping something a little bit exciting under wraps, the success of the Compose Queer concert and commissioning initiative we have been granting generous funding from the Sustaining Creative Workers Initiative to produce Australia’s first album of queer classical music. With a planned launch date of 18 March, order your Album today to receive your copy as soon as possible.

Spectrum Album Pre-order

Pre-order a copy of Divisi’s debut album, Spectrum, today. Recorded in late January 2022 The album is Australia’s firs album of queer classical music. Alongside acclaimed pianist Coady Green, Divisi has recorded a ground-breaking album with works by Sally Whitwell, Caerwen Martin, and our four commissioned composers from the 2021 Compose Queer initiative Meta Cohen, Robert McIntyre, Lore Burns, and Ariel Bonnell.

A$35.00

We received a grant?

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We have some fantastic news, Divisi has been granted funding from ABC Classic FM to record and commission and new song-cycle by, Compose Queer composer, Meta Cohen with four new texts by Leona Cohen, Savanna Wegman, Christopher Healy, and Victor Hu. Bailey and I are so excited to be able to continue the work started at Compose Queer to bring Queer experiences into the mainstream of classical music. We owe so much to the generous donors who took a chance on us in our Australian Cultural Fund campaign for Compose Queer. It was the success of that program and the confidence it gave us as a choir that directly lead to this success. We are so thankful for the chance you took on us and we are so excited to show you even more fantastic music by local, emerging, queer composers.

Check out the article and the other winners here.