Quem Quaeritis – a Play of the Nativity (Ross Edwards, b. 1943)

Quem Quaeritis – a Play of the Nativity (c) Ross Edwards 2021.


The SCM New Music Ensemble, SCM Chamber Choir, and SCM Choir conducted by Dr. Paul Stanhope Ross Edwards's Quem Quaeritis – a Play of the Nativity (1967, revised 1972 and 2021).

Dramatic adaptation directed by Narelle Yeo featuring -
Laura Wachsmann, mezzo soprano
Ashleigh Lane, soprano
Sophie Millar and Holly Miller, soprano and alto duet
Lachlan Massey, baritone
Isabella Piggott, actor
Siobhan Lynch, dancer

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Quem Quaeritis – a Play of the Nativity

As an undergraduate composition student at Adelaide’s Elder Conservatorium in 1967, it was never my intention to compose a children’s nativity play until Graham Williams, a friend and fellow student, persuaded me to postpone work on a totally serial string quartet - in academic vogue at the time - and collaborate with him on something for his church choir to perform at Christmas. Graham had assembled
a text of English carols and Latin chants narrating the events of the Nativity, and these I set to music in a hybrid mediaeval/modern style in which the influence of my former teacher, Peter Maxwell Davies, is often evident. Today, I can also recognise elements of my own emerging voice.
Quem Quaeritis was first premiered in St. Cuthbert’s Church, Prospect, and later St. Peter’s Cathedral, Adelaide, in December 1967. It was slightly revised in 1972 for a performance by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra the following year. I extracted and published five of the carols (as Five Carols from Quem Quaeritis)
in 1981, in an arrangement I made especially for Nicholas Routley and the Sydney Chamber Choir.
The manuscript of the complete work was missing, presumed lost, for many years until the conductor William Kempster discovered a copy of the 1967 version of a score in a library and insisted on reviving it. He sent a copy to Paul Stanhope who also realised he had a copy, but of the revised 1972 version. The process of reviving the work began in 2020, and for this I thank the dedication and editing skills of William, Paul and Peggy Polias. This will be the first performance of the work in nearly 50 years.

Program note © Ross Edwards