About the Artists

Brett Weymark conductor

Brett Weymark OAM is one of Australia’s foremost choral conductors. Appointed Artistic and Music Director of Sydney Philharmonia Choirs in 2003, he has conducted the Choirs throughout Australia as well as internationally. He has also conducted the Sydney, Adelaide, Queensland, West Australian and Tasmanian symphony orchestras, Orchestra of the Antipodes, Sydney Youth Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Hong Kong Philharmonic, as well as productions for WAAPA, Pacific Opera and OzOpera, and he has performed with Opera Australia, Pinchgut Opera, Australian Chamber Orchestra, The Song Company and Musica Viva.

He studied singing and conducting at the University of Sydney and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, continuing his conducting studies with Simon Halsey, Vance George, Daniel Barenboim and John Eliot Gardiner, amongst others.

His repertoire at SPC has included Bach’s Passions and Christmas Oratorio, the Mozart, Verdi, Duruflé and Fauré requiems, and Orff’s Carmina Burana. He champions Australian composers, and has premiered works by Matthew Hindson, Elena Kats-Chernin, John Peterson, Daniel Walker, Rosalind Page, Peter Sculthorpe, Andrew Schultz and Ross Edwards. In 2011 he premiered his own work Brighton to Bondi with the Festival Chorus. He has also conducted musical theatre programs including Bernstein’s Candide, which won multiple BroadwayWorld Sydney awards. Under his direction, SPC received a Helpmann Award for Oedipus Rex and Symphony of Psalms, directed by Peter Sellars, and was nominated for a Limelight Award for Purcell’s King Arthur.

He was chorus master for the Adelaide Festival productions of Saul (2017), Hamlet (2018) and Requiem (2020), and he has prepared choirs for Charles Mackerras, Zubin Mehta, Edo de Waart, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Simon Rattle. He has recorded for the ABC and conducted film scores for Happy Feet, Mad Max Fury Road and Australia.

Recent conducting highlights include Sweeney Todd (West Australian Opera), Jandamarra by Paul Stanhope and Steve Hawke (SSO), Michael Tippett’s A Child Of Our Time (Adelaide Festival) and Carousel (State Opera South Australia).

In 2001 he was awarded an Australian Centenary Medal and in 2021 the Medal of the Order of Australia. In 2023 he celebrates his 20th season with SPC.

Brett Weymark is passionate about singing and the role music plays in both the wellbeing of individuals and the health and vitality of a community’s culture. He believes music can transform lives and should be accessible to all.

Lorina Gore soprano

Australian soprano Lorina Gore completed postgraduate voice studies at the Australian National University in Canberra and the National Opera Studio in London. She has won numerous prestigious opera awards, including two Helpmann awards, a Green Room Award, the Dame Joan Sutherland/ AOAC Scholarship, prizes and scholarships in the 2010 Opera Awards, the Covent Garden National Opera Studio Scholarship, HeraldSun Aria (2nd place in 2002 and 2004), and the Australian National Aria Competition.

She joined Opera Australia as a principal artist in 2008 and has since performed many roles, including Violetta (La Traviata), Marie (Wozzeck), Leïla (The Pearlfishers), Amina (La sonnambula), Musetta (La Bohème) and Roxana in King Roger, for which she won a Helpmann Award and a Green Room Award. She subsequently received her second Helpmann Award for the role of Ophelia in Brett Dean’s Hamlet at the Adelaide Festival (2018). Earlier this year she sang Violetta for Opera Queensland.

Her recordings include A Toast to Melba and Johann Strauss: Waltzes and Arias with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Marko Letonja, highlights from Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier with Yvonne Kenny, Bliss with Opera Australia, and Handel’s Rodelinda, conducted by Richard Bonynge. Ashlyn Tymms mezzo-soprano

Perth-born Ashlyn Tymms is a graduate of the Melbourne Conservatorium and the Royal College of Music. While in London she sang Rosimonda in Faramondo (London Handel Festival) and created the role of Judith in the premiere of The Two Sisters (Tête à Tête). Other roles include the Newspaper Vendor in Les Mamelles de Tirésias by Poulenc, Euridice in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Dido in Dido and Aeneas, Eurydice in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld and Berenice in Rossini’s comic intermezzo L’occasione fa il ladro (Opportunity Makes the Thief).

She made her West Australian Opera debut as Lapák and Mrs Pásková in The Cunning Little Vixen (2018), and since then has sung Flora in La Traviata and the Lady-in-Waiting in Verdi’s Macbeth, as well as appearing in Opera in the Quarry and singing regionally with the company in The Pinnacles and the Valley of the Giants. Her most recent West Australian Opera appearances include Dorabella in the Glyndebourne Festival production of Così fan tutte, Hansel in Hansel and Gretel and Santuzza in Cavelleria rusticana; in February she will sing Carmen with the company.

Recent and future concert engagements include the Melbourne and West Australian symphony orchestras, Flinders Quartet and the Vienna Pops Orchestra.

Nicholas Jones tenor

Brilliant young tenor Nicholas Jones won a Green Room Award and a Helpmann Award nomination for his portrayal of David in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg for Opera Australia. Other appearances for OA have included principal roles in Carmen, Il turco in Italia, The Nose and Two Weddings, One Bride, as well as Tamino and Almaviva in the touring productions of The Magic Flute and The Barber of Seville. More recently, he sang Michael Driscoll in the world premiere of Elena Kats-Chernin’s Whiteley and Tony in the OA touring production of West Side Story.

For State Opera South Australia he created the role of Fish Lamb in the premiere of George Palmer’s Cloudstreet, and has also performed Tom (Christina’s World) and Harry (Voss). He sang Male Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia (Victorian Opera) and was an original cast member of Deborah Cheetham’s indigenous opera Pecan Summer. His most recent appearance with Sydney Philharmonia Choirs was in Haydn’s Creation (2018).

This year’s engagements have included Tsarevich Gvidon (The Golden Cockerel) for the Adelaide Festival, Jaquino (Fidelio) with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and Almaviva with Opera Australia. Next week he will sing Handel’s Messiah with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

Nicholas Jones is the current recipient of the Dame Heather Begg Memorial Award. Morgan Pearse baritone

Morgan Pearse studied at the Royal College of Music International Opera School and was a member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio (2014–15). He made his debut with English National Opera singing Figaro in The Barber of Seville, a role he’s since sung for NZ Opera and State Opera South Australia. His journey with the character of Figaro also includes The Marriage of Figaro (Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Opernhaus Zurich) and Corigliano’s Ghosts of Versailles (Wolf Trap Opera).

Other opera highlights include Papageno (The Magic Flute) and Araspe (Tolomeo) in Karlsruhe, Sid (Albert Herring) for the Buxton Festival, Belcore (The Elixir of Love) for NZ Opera, Ned Keene (Peter Grimes) with the Auckland Philharmonia, Papageno with the Russian National Orchestra and Farasmene (Radamisto) with Philharmonia Baroque.

Since his landmark performance in 2011 of Schubert’s Winterreise (the first in Sydney in 20 years), appearances in his native Australia have included Apollo in L’Orfeo (Australian Brandenburg Orchestra), Dioclesian (Pinchgut Opera), as well as Notes from Underground and the title role in Owen Wingrave (Sydney Chamber Opera). He has sung Messiah with the West Australian, Tasmanian and Adelaide symphony orchestras, and previously with Sydney Philharmonia Choirs in 2013.

Morgan Pearse won the audience prize at the 2020 London Handel Festival and has since appeared regularly at the Innsbruck Festival for Early Music.

C H O R U S OZ R E T U R N S I N 2 0 2 3 ! MAHLER 8

ChorusOz is returning to the Sydney Opera House over the June long weekend in 2023. And it returns in monumental fashion with Mahler’s Symphony No.8 –‘Symphony of a Thousand’. We need 1,000 voices! Registrations are now open and singers of all levels are welcome. ChorusOz is your chance to join other passionate singers from across Australia and immerse yourself in a major choral work over a full weekend, culminating in a performance with the Sydney Youth Orchestra led by Artistic and Music Director Brett Weymark. Register now for a life-changing experience – making great music and new friendships.

Scan the QR code for more information and to register for the ChorusOz 2023 choir.