25th September - Museum for Contemporary Art Australia
Photo credit - Caleb McKay
The Solis Ensemble was invited to join the award-winning Australian performer, producer, and composer Jessica O’Donoghue to celebrate the premiere of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s 2026 Neil Balnaves Tallawoladah Lawn Commission by internationally acclaimed artist Ai Weiwei.
Alongside O’Donoghue and the ensemble were legends of the Australian choral scene Andrew O’Connor, Amy Moore, and Timothy Reynolds.
Featured in this performance was a new composition by O’Donoghue, The Making of Peace. This work was commissioned as a response to Weiwei’s artwork, serving as a commentary on the nuance of what peace truly requires. While the quartet mused on passages from Denise Levertov’s poem Making Peace, the ensemble added a haunting layer of uncertainty bubbling under the surface as they listed an accumulating chronology of wars and conflicts throughout human history.
As O’Donoghue’s solo voice reflected on Sara Teasdale’s Spring in War-Time, the ensemble grew in intensity, before urgently threatening to overwhelm the poetry with the overlapping catalogue of wars. The piece encourages listeners to consider that behind this mountain of recorded conflicts lies an incomprehensible number of lives lost; although when repeated often enough, we begin to see war with apathetic eyes as a distant, abstract concept.
Overlooking the newly unveiled artwork, the afternoon began with the mournful O Vos Omnes by Tomás Luis de Victoria, a call to witness suffering and sorrow, before leading into The Making of Peace, and closing with Da Pacem Domine by Arvo Pärt, a prayer for peace originally composed in memory of the victims of the 2004 Madrid Train Bombings. These three incredible works programmed together by O’Donoghue were a thought-provoking and evocative response to Ai Weiwei’s artwork.
Soloists: Amy Moore, Jessica O’Donoghue, Timothy Reynolds, Andrew O’Connor
Choristers in the recording and/or performance: Caleb McKay | Eli Labi | Ezra Hersch | Ashley Hinton | Astrid Girdis | Axl Beeby | Beth Norman | Mia Mead | Carmi Somers | Emily Malczewski | Gaby Utian | Holly Miller | Jespah Cropley | Jonathan Bruhl | River Kim | Ruben Mihalovich | Sarah Fyvie | Stella Milton | Violet Sweeney | Casper Walcot