“ALL is healed, all  is health…Hearts all whole,” go the words to American composer Morton Laurisden’s  radiant  song “Sure On This Shining Night,” the centrepiece of this weekend’s  concert by the very democratic University of Canberra Chorale.

To be sure, some of the composers chosen were world-famous figures such as Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland, but the songs carefully selected by director Alan Hicks were largely drawn from the North American folk tradition.

Beginning an optimistic Navajo round, “When You Were Born”, set to music by Jody Healy, it involved a degree of audience participation, but mostly the songs showed off the abilities of this non-auditioned ensemble.

The chorale sings for pleasure as well as art, evident in the setting by Ricky Ian Gordon of the Langston Hughes poem that begins: “I went to look for Joy, slim dancing Joy”. Here the spirit was simply joyful.

A set of Barber songs performed by mezzo-soprano Christina Wilson with Hicks at the piano departed from the concert theme in having been taken from the manuscripts of mediaeval monks. While the exquisite song “The Crucifixion” was the musical highlight, it was the mischievous “The Heavenly Banquet” drew most attention from the audience – “I would like to have Jesus sitting here among them/I would like to have a great lake of beer for the King of kings.”

Wilson was later to return to the centre of the church to perform, with gentle deliberation, three well-known traditional songs “At the River”, the Shaker song “Simple Gifts,” and the lullaby “The Little Horses”.

It remained for all the singers to return for a highhearted trio of songs “I bought me a cat”, “The Boatmen’s dance,” and “Ching-a-ring ching chaw,” all set to music by Copland.

It proved a heart-warming way to spend a wet Saturday afternoon.