SYDNEY.- The Sydney Opera House today announced Art on the Steps, two major new commissions by leading Australian artists Mel O'Callaghan and Frances Barrett. Their creations will be unveiled on Friday 10 and Saturday 11 April, when the Opera House’s Monumental Steps will be transformed offering audiences a rare opportunity to experience the power of the human voice.

For Mel O'Callaghan’s Live Echo, four large tuning forks stand tall on the Monumental Steps as 300 singers from Sydney Philharmonia Choirs perform a composition based on the harmonic frequencies of the Opera House itself. For Frances Barrett’s Celia, seven vocalist-improvisors gather below the steps for an intimate meditation on extinction and loss. Both works, free for visitors, reimagine the possibilities of this celebrated civic space.

Sydney Opera House Director of Programming, Brenna Hobson said: “This is contemporary art at its most powerful: immediate, embodied and alive. By reimagining the Opera House as an instrument of voice and vibration, Mel O'Callaghan and Frances Barrett invite audiences to experience the world anew. Both artists ask vital questions about resonance, loss and the threads that connect us all — questions that feel particularly urgent right now.”

Live Echo by Mel O'Callaghan

Live Echo translates the elemental frequencies of the Opera House, earth and human body into musical notes that resonate with natural rhythms including the heartbeat and breath. Framed by four large tuning forks – currently being constructed by local blacksmiths, each one stands up to four metres high – 300 voices from Sydney Philharmonia Choirs will take to the Monumental Steps as voice, ritual and vibration merge. With a composition developed on the Opera House's Grand Organ, O’Callaghan has collaborated with Sydney Conservatorium of Music Professor Damien Ricketson and conductor Brett Weymar to transform the Monumental Steps into a living instrument in a resonant act of collective sound.

Celia by Frances Barrett

Barrett’s Celia takes its name from a cloned Pyrenean ibex — the first animal brought back from extinction, only to die minutes after birth. Part lament, part invocation, the work centres the voice as a vessel for loss and remembrance, imagining the sonic resonance of an endling’s story in a profound meditation on extinction. Composed by Joanna Fabro, this new work will feature seven vocalist-improvisers who will perform a haunting exchange of call and response.