Christ Church St Laurence: Sydney (AUSTRLIA)

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!