Sydney Chamber Choir’s final program for 2019, led by Artistic Director Sam Allchurch, cleverly drew together a variety of works united in their explorations of the passage of time, the passing of seasons or very specific snapshots of – as the title outlines – time and place.

Sam Allchurch with the Sydney Chamber Choir. Photograph © Pedro Greig

The concert in the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s Verbrugghen Hall opened with a hushed account of René Clausen’s Tonight Eternity Alone, which sets words from Thomas S Jones, Jr’s Dusk at Sea (with aquatic references neatly excised), featuring luminous solos from sopranos Wei Jiang and Megan Cronin over the choir’s cushioning sound.

In fact, the choir was in fine form throughout. The word painting in former SCC Artistic Director Paul Stanhope’s I Have Not Your Dreaming – setting Margaret Glendenning’s tribute to her teacher Oodgeroo Noonuccal – was a highlight, an erupting texture illustrating the poet’s “sweet poetry of ibis flight”, while the a cappella singing in a trio of anthems by Healey Willan – texts in praise of the Virgin Mary – was assured and sonorous.

Jonathan Dove’s operatic The Passing of the Year, which sets several poets including...