_{Cover Image: Brett Weymark conducts ChorusOz. Image by Keith Saunders.}

Created in 2006 by Artistic & Music Director Brett Weymark to allow those who couldn’t commit to a regular choir the opportunity to sing once a year on a world-class stage, ChorusOz is an opportunity for singers of all levels to immerse themselves in a major choral work over a weekend. Choristers first register their interest, receive learning support via professional backing tracks and score, and then join Weymark for two full days of rehearsals at UWA’s Winthrop Hall (on Friday 25th and Saturday 26th September) prior to a performance of the full work at 5pm on the same Saturday.

In 2026 ChorusOz turns its gaze to Orff’s fantastical imagining of the Medieval: Carmina Burana. It’s easy to see the appeal of Carmina Burana, from the cacophonous opening ‘O Fortuna’ – a theme that’s been used in countless films, television advertising, sporting events, and comedy sketches alike; to the eccentricity of the ‘Olim lacus colueram’ (Once I lived on a lake) sung by a swan being roasted for dinner; to the gloriously sensual ‘In trutina’ sung by the soprano soloist, who laments being suspended between chastity and desire.

Structured around these themes of lust, love, gambling, food, and the unpredictability of Fortune, Carmina Burana is a rollicking ride for choir and orchestra, based on selected poems from a Mediaeval manuscript dating back to the 11th century. Orff’s wild 1930s reimagining of these medieval era texts is a musical language all his own, however. Using huge orchestral forces and extensive percussion, Carmina Burana’s music is often driven more by rhythm, repetition and physical energy than by conventional symphonic development. There’s no stuffiness or pretention in this score, and this is one of the great selling points argues Weymark:

“The piece is really multifaceted and it’s a bit like walking around a mediaeval museum of fun because you get this wheel of fortune, effectively, at the beginning, which is, you know, either you’re at the top of the wheel or the bottom of the wheel. You get all the seasons of the year and how they’re explored in both a naturalistic and, dare we say, sexual connotation. We then travel to the courts of love at the very end of the piece to look at courtly love and how the feminine ideal is placed upon a pedestal in a way.

But before that, we all travel down to the tavern where we see possibly every type of mediaeval debauchery you could possibly imagine. And the great thing is you get to sing about it. So it’s everything from a roasted swan to a very drunk abbot! It’s a Lonely Planet guide to the mediaeval Europe.”

Weymark is also keen to promote the benefits of choral singing:

“Singing in a choir is just bloody good fun. And ChorusOz rides and falls on how much enjoyment we have in the process. So, it’s not like going along to something where you’ll be told you’re singing flat or you’re singing sharp. It really is all about enjoying this music, exploring it, finding out better ways to sing it, enjoying the company of the people standing next to you, and actually making the best friends you’ll ever make…something about singing in a choir instantly breaks down barriers because, again, it’s not competitive. It’s actually collaborative.”

Quick to put to rest any concerns potential choristers who may be a little shy have when signing up to contribute to ChorusOz, and of the non-necessity to be a trained reader of traditional notation, Weymark adds:

“We provide a teaching team. You have a singer who’s singing your part [on some training links that are provided to choristers] already there. And we give you the music. I think that for a lot of people, just hearing the music and seeing the music at the same time, they will start to understand how notation works. They may not become the world’s most proficient reader of musical notation. But by the end of the experience, you will have a much better idea of how this sort of relates to, you know, little black notes on five staves. And you’ll find that on the day, because there are at least another 40 tenors or 100 sopranos, you’ll probably fit in with everybody else quite reasonably.

“Even if you struggle sometimes to absolutely hold your pitch, there’ll be at least another 100 people, or 400 people, or 800 people around you who know what they’re doing…they just lift you up, and you get a much better chance of having this extraordinary experience of what singing in a choir is really all about… I just want people to have a really positive experience of what singing is all about because the two things we’re designed to do is sing and dance. They’re the sort of two things that get ripped out of us as children, I think, in some ways. You know, we were meant to explore the huge range of our voice and our bodies, the huge possibility for movement and dance.

“And as civilisation has become more advanced, we seem to have lost our fundamental right to own any of that. That’s probably getting a little philosophical for ChorusOz, but there’s something in it which is saying, let’s take this back. You know, we’ve got this incredible instrument in our bodies. We should explore it.”

I’m sure Orff, along with the creators of the Carmina Burana Manuscript, would all say ‘Amen’ to that.

Want to sing in ChorusOz Perth? Visit https://www.chorusoz.com.au/perth/ to register as a participant. All levels of singing experience welcome – from newcomer to expert. Registrations close Monday 14 September.

Tickets for ChorusOz Perth: Carmina Burana are just $96 (A-res) or $86 (B-res), with concessions available, and are available now from: https://www.ticketswa.com/event/chorusoz