Christ Church St Laurence: Sydney (AUSTRALIA)
Ahhhh.... still making the rounds of churches in Australia as performing venues! They have decent if somewhat washy acoustics, but they are the perfect place for choral and sacred repertoire.
Anyway, Christ Church St Laurence in Sydney is a place that I had played at many years ago when I was a student, and I recently played there again. It is one of these interesting artifacts of colonial New South Wales. Situated near the busy Central station, it was constructed in the 19th century (that is old for Australia...), and the rest of the city has just grown up and around the old Anglican church.
It is home to a pretty nice organ that fills out the somewhat smaller space. It is definitely a church, and not a cathedral!
... and the walls are lined with beautiful stained glass windows that just glow in the Australian sunlight! Thankfully, not too many of the surrounding buildings have cast a shade on these works of art!
As I mentioned, the space isn't that large.. but with lovely high ceilings and solid stone walls that give it a very desirable acoustic to play in! But you definitely need to spit out and articulate to be heard properly!
The altar area is framed by a paining of the apostles, and is actually situated quite a long way back from the congregation. For performers, this actually works quite well... as we aren't fighting with the stone altar for space! But it follows a similar format to English Anglican churches, where there is space for the choir in the front facing in from the sides before the pews start.
... not sure about this bit though!
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It sounds like Christ Church St Laurence in Sydney is a beautiful and unique place to perform, with its colonial history and stunning stained glass windows. Thanks for sharing your experience playing there!
Thanks! It was a lovely place to play in!
!HBIT
Ummmm, about the spelling of Australia in your title....?
Does seem like the acoustics would be awesome though!
Oh FFS!!!! What a pain in the arse country name to spell!
Even if we became a republic and renamed it to Arse Country, I'm sure people would still misspell it to Ass Country all the time. We can't win.
That is one helluva organ! There is certainly something to be said for a good church organ.
I'm also unsure about the dude in that last picture. If nothing else it looks neat. Would be awesome if he rose to a standing position at Halloween.
Haha... that would be quite a stunt! Although, I have to say that many European churches have some pretty bizarre things from further back in history that were completely normal for the time, but quite shocking for modern tastes!