Music / “Drawing Breath”, Luminescence Chamber Singers. At Gandel Atrium, National Museum, October 16. Reviewed by GRAHAM McDONALD.

FOR this concert series, the Luminescence Chamber Singers (artistic director AJ America, Veronica Milroy, Rachel Mink, Jack Stevens and Dan Walker) have assembled a collection of songs around the idea of breathing, an activity central to the art of singing. 

The age of the songs range over a millennium, Hildegard von Bingen in the 12th century to three works composed this year. At the same time the period from the 17th to the end of the 20th century was almost entirely overlooked, with the exception of the opening song, an arrangement of Pink Floyd’s “Breathe” from 1973’s album “Dark Side of the Moon”. 

The end result was a mix of medieval/renaissance music sitting alongside the very modern and the combination worked remarkably well. 

The program included three world premieres. The first was “Listen, Are You Breathing Just a Little and Calling It a Life” by the tenor in the ensemble Dan Walker. This has hints of Bulgarian folk harmonies in the scoring and goes in delightfully unexpected directions. 

The second premiere was commissioned by Luminescence from Australian composer Connor D’Netto entitled “Many Passes and Yearnings”. This a slow reflective work with some fine dissonances. 

The third premiere was an arrangement by the Luminescence artistic director AJ America of one of Andrew Ford’s “Red Dirt Hymns” suite “Isolation Hymn”. This has a strong folk-style melody with a solo vocal by America and very effective, mostly chordal backing from the other four, which comes and goes throughout the song.

Two other recent works in the program were also by local composers. Jess Green’s “I Heard You Sing” was reprised from its premier earlier this year and Brenda Gifford’s “Yangaa” (Sing!) is a fascinating work with each singer repeating one word, setting up rhythmic patterns and sounding like human looping pedals, dropping parts in and out and layering more on top.

The one downside to this concert was the venue. The Gandel Atrium is a vast reverberant space at the entrance of the National Museum building in Acton. A reverberant acoustic can be a wonderful thing for vocal music, but the sound here goes up into the ceiling and has all the clarity sucked out of it. 

There is an almost metallic crispness to an acoustic space that works (such as the Fitters’ Workshop), but which is just not there in the Atrium. In addition there is the problem of a constant rumble from the air conditioning underpinning all the sound being produced. 

It should also be pointed out to the museum’s event staff that elevator piano music through the speaker arrays above the stage is not needed before a concert like this and in any case becomes lost and incoherent in the acoustics of the room.