Originating as the idea of the Netherlands Chamber Choir, 150 Psalms received its premiere in Utrecht as a two-day event in 2017. Having experienced this unique event in New York as part of the Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival, Adelaide Festival’s Artistic Directors Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy decided to mount the momentous event as a three-day, rather than two-day event. So across three days the city was able to experience 150 psalms set by 150 composers from the late middle ages to the present. However these were much more than a series of concerts. We celebrated a thousand years of inspired composition with each concert preceded by a spoken introduction. In the case of Powerlessness, author Nam Le in his introduction explained just how relevant the psalms are to modern life and its dilemmas – on spiritual, political and personal levels.

The Song Company, under the leadership of Antony Pitts, provided a varied program extending from the early Renaissance of Ockeghem and Josquin to Britten and our near contemporary Sven-David Sandström. The choir and its members were presented in...