SoundCathedral (after the Sibylline Prophecies) is a 76-minute immersive performance installation by Michael Norris, created for the 40th anniversary of The Tudor Consort and premiered at the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts 2026. Conceived as a “loving deconstruction” of Orlando di Lasso’s Prophetiae Sibyllarum (c.1550), the work explores the prophetic, harmonically adventurous world of these motets through a contemporary spatial and sonic lens.
Bringing together three of Wellington’s top ensembles, The Tudor Consort, Stroma and the Rangatuone Ensemble (taonga puoro), the piece unfolds as a sequence of 15 sections, each forming a unique textural and gestural environment. While the instrumental writing is newly invented, all choral material is drawn directly from Lassus’s original motets, which are stretched, fragmented and reimagined across time and space. Beginning with a karakia and karanga, the singers process through the cathedral before the work expands into shimmering, whirling, oscillating and resonant soundworlds. SoundCathedral seeks to evoke the sublime and the ethereal, immersing listeners in a vast, luminous ocean of sound that bridges centuries.
FEATURING
The Tudor Consort (cond. Michael Stewart)
The Rangatuone Ensemble (cond. Riki Pirihi)
Stroma
The Bellringers of Wellington Cathedral
PROGRAMME
Michael Norris & Orlando di Lasso • SoundCathedral (after the Sibylline Prophecies) (76 min.)
