Media Release
OUR STORIES
An event of the UPSTAGEING Canberra festival
Directed by Dan Walker
5.00pm, Sunday 29 March 2026
James Fairfax Theatre, National Gallery of Australia
Tickets
$10 to $60, plus booking fee
Media Enquiries
Helen Catchatoorian
CCS Marketing
0412 527 135
marketing.canberrachoralsociety@gmail.com
Contact for Interviews
Dan Walker
Music Director, CCS
0412 880 297
info@danwalkercomposer.com
OUR STORIES
What happens when a community is given space to tell its own story? Proudly presented by Canberra Choral Society, as part of the UPSTAGEING Canberra festival, Our Stories is an exciting choral event that places storytelling at the centre of choral music.
Directed by Dan Walker, CCS Music Director, featuring the CCS choir, soloists Rachel Mink Soprano and Alasdair Stretch Baritone, and a string quartet and pianoforte, Our Stories is about lived experience. It brings together voices from across generations to explore memory, identity, belonging, and what it means to be heard.
The repertoire moves from stillness and reflection in Deep Peace (Bill Douglas), through memory and familiarity in Fields of Gold (Sting, arr. Dan Walker), to works resonant with humility, love, and the inner life, including He Never Expected Much (Dan Walker), Luminous Night of the Soul (Ola Gjeilo), and Sure on this Shining Night (Morten Lauridsen).
Our Stories is shaped by the idea that everyone carries a story worth sharing. Some are joyful, some complex, some unfinished. Together, they form a rich portrait of our community, reflected in works such as Our First April (Marjorie Halloran), The Circle Game (Joni Mitchell, arr. Dan Walker), and The Hope of Loving (Jake Runestad).
This unique concert celebrates wisdom, resilience, and the power of making art in life, not as nostalgia, but as a vital and contemporary act. Our Stories is about connection. About listening. About recognising ourselves in one another. It invites audiences to slow down, listen deeply, and find something of their own story in the music.
Dan Walker remarks, “I am looking forward to welcoming the Canberra community and friends to this wonderfully creative event as part of the inaugural UPSTAGEING Canberra festival”.
Background
Canberra Choral Society (Established 1952)
More than 70 years of fine music-making
The Canberra Choral Society (CCS) originated in 1952 with a small group of people who began singing together for their own pleasure and musical advancement. Since then, the CCS has developed into an auditioned symphonic choir and has become one of the most innovative and exciting choirs in the nation’s capital. CCS usually presents four concerts a year, including - since 2011 - an annual 'Come and Sing' program in which up to 120 non-auditioned singers from the broader community rehearse with the choir and perform a major concert with professional soloists and orchestra. CCS commissions and premieres new works to add to the choral repertoire, and continues to explore collaborative partnerships with community music groups in the region, including an annual concert with the National Capital Orchestra, which this year was the highly acclaimed The Armed Man on Saturday 5 July in Llewellyn Hall. See: https://canberrachoralsociety.org/about/
