Atlas of the Sky at Sydney Festival 2020

Liza Lim is one of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary classical composers. Her latest work brings together the virtuosic instrumentalism of Speak Percussion, the incredible voice of soprano Jessica Aszodi, and vocal sounds from a ‘crowd’ of 16 trained and untrained performers.

Inspired by the poetry of Eliot Weinberger and Bei Dao, and reflecting the turbulent rhythms of our world, Atlas of the Sky whips up a maelstrom of driving rhythms, swarming percussion and vocals.

The singers and performers use purpose-built instruments, including string drums, stones, wood blocks and the semantron – a resonant plank of wood used in Greek and Eastern European Christian Orthodox ritual – to tell aural stories about the stars, the power of crowds and changing constellations of memory.

Atlas of the Sky was awarded the Art Music prize for Best Performance of the Year at the 2019 APRA AMCOS Australia Awards.