Organ and imagery shed mutual light on two very different worlds.

Sydney Town Hall
January 9, 2015

One of the beauties of festivals is their ability to turn up the unexpected and last night’s event at Sydney Town Hall was a perfect example. Darkness and Light is an artistic meeting of opposites in every sense. Sound and vision, black and white, life and death, movement and stasis, flood and drought, hopes and fears… The last applies to the audience as much as anything, many of whom one suspects had come for a visual ride in a fast machine only to find themselves sitting through an organ recital. There were several noisy walkers and stalkers, but those who stayed the course were rewarded with a contemplative experience whose sounds and imagery lingered long after the trudge home through the sultry Sydney night.

The concept is the brainchild of the multi-talented Belgian organist and composer Bernard Foccroulle, AD of the Aix Festival and all-round collaborative artist. In tandem with the inventive Australian artist Lynette Wallworth, renowned for her interactive video work, he has come up with a way of illustrating an essentially formal concert format. Wallworth’s enhancing and stimulating images prompted reflection,...