June Tyzack is a founding member of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, at the time playing harpsichord and chamber organ, working as the Librarian, and for the 1995 Melbourne Festival, taking the role of Chorus Director of the inaugural Brandenburg Choir.
Tasmanian born, June returned home in 1999 after studies in London and a career in Sydney that also included Opera Australia, the Australian Singing Competition, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Opera Studio, Pacific Opera, Opera Mode, and playing keyboards in Music Theatre pit orchestras.
From 2001 to 2024 as Chorus Master of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Chorus, June prepared the works of Baroque and Classical composers and presented the corresponding pre-concert talks. She broke with tradition in Hobart’s Federation Concert Hall for choral concerts, introducing surtitles, and where appropriate, theatrical lighting, projection, and innovative staging.
Through her initiative and collaboration with interstate symphonic choirs, the TSO Chorus performed with all the major Australian orchestras and the Hong Kong Philharmonic, expanding its repertoire with Mahler’s 2nd, 3rd and 8th Symphonies, Britten’s War Requiem, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, and Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder and other significant major choral works.
The TSO Chorus participated in performances in the Berlin Philharmonie and Barcelona’s Palau de la Música Catalana, and under June’s direction, performed a program of a cappella Australian works in the 15th century Basilica de Santa Maria del Pi in Barcelona. This resulted in an invitation to premiere Roxanna Panufnik’s Ever Us, commissioned to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, alongside Berlin’s famed Rundfunkchor and eight other selected international choirs, but the performance was cancelled due to Covid. On the eve of global concert hall closures, the TSO Orchestra, Chorus and Chief Conductor, performed Brahms Ein deutsches requiem in Hobart’s Federation Concert Hall for an audience of two – TSO’s CEO and Chorus Master, June Tyzack.
Throughout the two decades with the TSO, June devised cutting edge choral theatre performances for MONA FOMA, DARK MOFO, Synaesthesia at MONA and 10 Days on the Island, partnered the chorus with Melbourne-based dance company Balletlab for ABOVE with choreography to Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir a cappella, and premiered Michaela Gleave’s A Galaxy of Suns for 36 part choir, smart phone app, and lighting and sound design under a Hobart winter’s night sky.
A fascination with Spain and a curiosity about Spanish Baroque music motivated June to walk the Camino de Santiago. On her return she curated a program of Spanish and Catalan works for Hobart’s annual ‘Festival of Voices’ which was performed with percussion and guitar on the court of Hobart’s historic Real Tennis Club.
June’s penchant for interesting venues saw the chorus singing in the Railway Sheds on Hobart’s waterfront, the Corten Stairs at MONA, the convict-built walls of the Kangaroo Bluff Battery, and the Waterworks Quarry. “Elevator Music’’ was performed within a moving elevator, and “Black Bach” was a performance of Bach Chorales in total darkness in a Wine Barrel Room.
For the TSO’s unique ‘Obscura’ series (2021 – 2024), as Creative Director June paved the way for contemporary orchestral repertoire to be more a synaesthetic experience - seen, smelt, heard and tasted!
In November of last year, June launched A Fist Full of Wits – an adventurous vocal ensemble that explores the Five Wits and delivers its message to an active, participatory audience.
June is honoured to return to the Brandenburg Orchestra and continue the tradition of Noël! Noël!.