Luminescence Chamber Singers is a professional vocal ensemble based on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country (Canberra, ACT). Led by mezzo soprano AJ America, Luminescence has emerged as one of Australia’s most exciting professional ensembles, championing the unbound
expressive potential of our original instrument: the human voice.

First founded in 2015 amongst undergraduate students, Luminescence now comprises a professional six-voice ensemble (Luminescence Chamber Singers), an annual concert season, a commissioning and creative development program, touring activity across regional and
metropolitan NSW, Victoria, and South Australia, and a wide array of outreach and music education programs, including Luminescence Children’s Choir, an acclaimed program for singers aged 10 – 17, and an annual Holiday Program (ages 7 – 12). Luminescence works closely with Roland Peelman AM, a regular conductor, collaborator, and artistic mentor for the Chamber Singers.

Luminescence Chamber Singers have built an enviable reputation as a uniquely virtuosic ensemble, performing repertoire that spans renaissance polyphony, medieval music, contemporary art music, pop, and folk, and increasingly working across both amplified and
unamplified forms. Recent highlights include sold-out performances at the National Museum of Australia (2024), Melbourne Recital Centre (2024), and Sydney Opera House (2023), and debut appearances in Hobart and Adelaide, including at The Festival of Voices (2024) and at ACO’s The Neilson (Pier 2/3). Across the 2023 – 2024 seasons, the ensemble recorded and released their first studio recordings, including music films of new works by Dan Walker and Jess Green, an EP of music by Leah Blankendaal (released with ABC Classics), and new works by and with composer/pianist Sally Whitwell, commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia. Luminescence’s debut album (Of The Body) was recorded in early 2024, and is scheduled forthcoming release with ABC Classic.

In addition to an increasingly national touring schedule, Luminescence has toured extensively through central west NSW with Music In The Regions (2023), as well as throughout the NSW South-Coast and southern highlands, including numerous residencies at Four Winds, Bermagui. Luminescence has appeared annually at Canberra International Music Festival (CIMF) since 2017. At the 2024 Canberra International Music Festival, Luminescence joined forces with 2021 Freedman Jazz Fellow Hilary Geddes (electric guitar) and Freya Schack-Arnott (cello) to present Andrew Ford’s ‘Red Dirt Hymns’ for a capacity crowd. Since 2020, Luminescence has joined forces with CIMF to present annual mini-festival for the festive season,

A Luminous Christmas

The Bega Valley Youth Orchestra was co-founded in February 2020. Despite bush fires and COVID, it has been a great success. Under the direction of Vanessa Vromans and the support of the BVYO tutors Julian Gonzalez, Georgi Hargraves, Jack Hobbs and Steven Fitzgerald, the Bega Valley Youth Orchestra has performed at the Four Winds Youth Festival, Cobargo Folk Festival, annual Summer Strings Camps, the Bega Show and we look forward to performing a lot more in our community and beyond. We wish to create a space for all young musicians to join and are determined to give the kids of the Bega Valley a quality music education and the delightful opportunity to make music together.

Djinama Yilaga is an intergenerational Yuin choir, establish in 2019 and created in Cheryl Davison’s capacity as Four Winds First Nations Creative Producer. Djinama Yilaga perform songs in Dhurga language, spoken traditionally in the Sapphire Coast region.

Yuin people were often multi-lingual, speaking and understanding languages of neighbouring and visiting groups. Dhurga was spoken and understood by many within the 13 tribes of the Yuin Nation. It was the dominant tongue of the Walbunga people of the Broulee region and the Brindja Yuin people of Moruya.

The choir emerged as a mechanism to revitalise language through song, following a unique pedagogy established by Westpac scholar, Dr Lou Bennett AM. The community led project, supported by Dr Lou Bennett was initially funded by the National Museum of Australia and Four Winds, Bermagui.

The choir has gone from strength to strength and is continually requested to perform at local and national events. They have performed at multiple Four Winds Easter Festivals, the Four Winds Spring Youth Music Festival, to a sold-out audience at the National Museum of Australia, The National Gallery, Parliament House, travelled to Poland, the USA, Alice Springs for Desert Song Festival and many more.

’The ancient Dhurga language is given great harmonious light to survive and bloom through the voices of First Nations choir Djinama YIlaga. Their songs release, calm and evoke beauty and growth.”
– Photographer and story teller Elise Idiens

Bega Valley Male Voice Choir: The Bega Valley Men’s Choir formed after the Black Summer fires of 2020-2021 by conductor Geoffrey Badger. It has succeeded as a source of strength, beauty, community and connection between men across the valley since that time. Filled with rich, deep harmonies, love songs and lullabies, the sound of the choir lifts spirits and soothes the soul.

Andrew Ford’s Red Dirt Hymns is a living songbook four years in the making, a hymn to the country beneath our feet. In this Windsong Residency LAB featuring the Luminescence Chamber Singers, this work brings together the words of sixteen contemporary Australian writers—poets, essayists, and folksingers—capturing themes of praise, grief, hope, and the natural beauty of the land. These songs are not dedicated to a god, but to the earth itself.

From Ellen van Neerven’s dark clouds to John Kinsella’s lush gardens, Red Dirt Hymns does what a hymnal is meant to do: it brings us closer to each other and to the light and shade of the Australian landscape.

Red Dirt Hymns Artists will include:
Luminescence Chamber Singers, Vocal Ensemble
Freya Schack-Arnott, Cello
Hilary Geddes, Guitar
Roland Peelman AM, Composer and Conductor
Members of Bega Male Voice Choir, Riverbend Choir, That Bunch of Singers, Spirit Allegro and Djinama Yilaga + Choir directors Geoffrey Badger and Dan Scollay