LIVE ECHO (2026)
‘LIVE ECHO’
SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE, SYDNEY
11 APRIL 2026
Curated by Micheal Do
Presented and commissioned by the Sydney Opera House as part of Art on the Steps
SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE, SYDNEY
11 APRIL 2026
Curated by Micheal Do
Presented and commissioned by the Sydney Opera House as part of Art on the Steps
Live Echo, by Mel O’Callaghan, is a large-scale choral performance developed for the Monumental Steps of the Sydney Opera House. With a durational, site-responsive score, the work investigates resonance as a relational condition between bodies, voices, architecture and environment, examining how collective sound generates shared states of attention, attunement and transformation.
At the core of Live Echo is a conceptual shift from breath toward the heart as a rhythmic and organising principle. This frames the work around timing, synchronisation, drift and collective presence rather than individual virtuosity. Sound is not only something heard but something that moves through bodies and space. Drawing on O’Callaghan’s background in dance, music is conceived as a form of choreography, with voices acting as moving elements in a larger spatial and temporal composition.
The musical foundation of Live Echo was developed on the Opera House’s Grand Organ. Untrained in music, O’Callaghan approached the organ intuitively, conceiving each key not as a technical device but as a voice. In this way, the organ became an extension of the Opera House itself, with harmonic foundations drawn from the water beneath the building on Bennelong Point.
Further development took place in collaboration with organist and academic Dr Sing Darcy, whose research focuses on music in sacred and ritualised spaces. The organ material was arranged into a large-scale choral score by Dan Walker, one of Australia’s most celebrated choral composers, who transformed the instrument’s tonal character into an ambitious work for 300 voices, preserving its expressive intensity while expanding it into a collective form.
A central conceptual driver of Live Echo is entrainment, the process by which rhythms synchronise over time in a dynamic process of alignment, drift and recalibration. This idea was informed by research at the University of Bern into how the heart rates of singers synchronise with music during performance. It was also shaped by research into breath and altered states of consciousness developed with Dr Sabine Rittner at the University of Heidelberg.
The work’s harmonic language sits outside the western tonal system known as equal temperament. These sounds, which recall European tuning practices that existed before pitch standardisation, align with diverse musical traditions where flexible pitch remains common, including Indian classical music. In Live Echo, microtonality emerges intuitively, allowing pitch to settle where resonance leads. Four monumental tuning forks tuned to 256 hertz activate sympathetic resonance, extending vibration from the human body to an architectural, collective scale.
Live Echo has been realised with the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs under Brett Weymark, Music and Artistic Director, and supported by the curatorial vision of Micheal Do. Costumes have been designed with reference to Homage to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, a tapestry by Opera House architect Jørn Utzon, translating colour, rhythm, performance and procession into a living sonic work.
A small group of soloists are focal points within the larger choral body. These include soprano Ria Andriani, a long-term collaborator of O’Callaghan; soprano Josephine Brereton, whose voice reaches extreme upper registers; and bass Andrew O’Connor, whose sustained low frequencies anchor the harmonic field.
Producer: Kelly Dezart-Smith
Production manager: George Challis
Director of Programs: Brenna Hobson
Choristers: Sydney Philharmonia Choirs
Conductor: Brett Weymark OAM
Conductor assistant: Arlie Bragg
Soloists: Ria Andriani, Josephine Brereton and Andrew O’Connor
Access consulting and facilitation : Imogen Yang
Percussionists: Alice Richards, Holly Conner and Laurence Pike
Choral composer: Dan Walker
Organist and musical consultant: Dr Sing Ly D’Arcy
Tuning fork production: Eveleigh Works
Studio producer: Lisa Myeong-Joo
Studio and performance team: Janice Cui, Venus Stone, Kevin Wong, Coco Marlo, Daemon Silk and Xi Bing Su
Videographers: Clemens Habicht and Zeeshan Sharif
The tuning forks were developed and produced by Matthew Mewburn and the blacksmiths at Eveleigh Works in consultation with Damien Ricketson, Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney.
Thank you to Idealist donors, Andrew Cameron AM and Cathy Cameron, for their support of this project.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.