The Companion Guide to Rome

Pop inside the iconic Hayes Street Studio to hear a world class musical performance that is captivating, challenging the ordinary and exhilarating, all just a breath away. Steps from the Neutral Bay ferry wharf. 

ACO violist Stef Farrands, SSO cellist Chris Pidcock and MCO violinist Natalia Harvey perform The Companion Guide to Rome, a 2012 Pulitzer Prize-nominated work written by American composer Andrew Norman. 

Spanning nine unique movements, the piece pulls listeners ears inside nine Roman cathedrals that Norman spent a year living amongst during his time as winner of the illustrious Rome Prize.

Norman describes his musical portraits as being inspired by “the proportions of the churches, the qualities of their surfaces, the patterns in their floors, the artwork on their walls, and the lives and legends of the sands whose name they bear.”

Vocalist Dominic Lui joins the Hayes collective with an ethereal song of twisted love from the 1600’s, D’un feu secret je me sens consumer, written by French musician and dancer Michel Lambert.

Pianist Lee Dionne moonlights as a harpsichordist with flautist Rosie Gallagher, who brings a crackling Flute Sonata No. 273 in G Major by Johann Joachim Quantz.