CANBERRA music organisation Luminescence announced its new season this morning (November 5), which artistic director AJ America described as inspired by the idea of a new Renaissance, “an artistic and creative rebirth and flourishing in the aftermath of two rather challenging years.”

Noting that the Black Death was one of the significant events that heralded in the Renaissance of the 16th century, she says,  the program will  include songs by favourite Renaissance composers, such as Monteverdi, Gesualdo and Marenzio, as well as four new commissions, three by Canberra composers Jess Green, Brenda Gifford and Dan Walker and new arrangements of some songs you might not expect in a Luminescence concert, including one from Queen.

Partnerships are the name of the game these days, so as well as returning to some of its favourite venues such as All Saints Anglican Church and Wesley, its joining the National Museum to present the concert “Drawing Breath” and three of the concerts will tour regionally and into Sydney, including three times to the Hume Conservatorium in Goulburn.

The season is:

Program 1: “Ave Regina,” music by Francesco Cavalli, Orlando Lasso, Hermann Contractus and contemporary composers Alice Chance, Andrew Ford, Gabriel Jackson, Cecilia McDowall, and a newly commissioned work by Jess Green.

• March 26, 5pm, St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Braidwood
• April 2, 7pm, Hume Conservatorium Creative Precinct, Goulburn
• April3, 6.30pm All Saint’s Anglican Church.

Program 2: “Untraveled Worlds/ Death Speaks,” Lang’s “Death Speaks” song cycle performed by Luminescence Children’s Choir.

• June 26, 5pm, Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture.

Program 3: “Dolce Cantavi,” where a Luminescence Chamber Singers trio explores the perennial power of the female trio in myth and in music for three female voices by Anne Cawrse, Alice Chance, Caroline Shaw, Gavin Bryars and David Lang  alongside renaissance music by Hildegard von Bingen, Orlando Lasso, and others.

• August 20, 7pm, Hume Conservatorium Creative Precinct, Goulburn
• August 21, 2pm, Braidwood Uniting Church, Braidwood
• August 28, 6.30pm Wesley Uniting Church, Forrest

“Drawing Breath”: Luminescence Chamber Singers sing diverse songs from Machaut and Monteverdi to Pink Floyd and Queen, and newly commissioned works by Brenda Gifford, Dan Walker and Queensland’s Connor D’Netto.

• October 15, 5pm, St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Braidwood
• October 16, 6.30pm, National Museum
• October 21, 7pm, Hume Conservatorium Creative Precinct, Goulburn.

Season subscriptions here