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Andrew Melchior to premiere
The Lumen choir
at Oulu Cathedral
Andrew Melchior will premiere his first work for choir, The Lumen, at Oulu Cathedral in Finland on Saturday 21 November as part of the Lumo Light Festival.
The new piece will close The Logos, Melchior’s fast radio burst installation that has been running in Oulu Cathedral since Easter, bringing together deep-space signals, live electronics and choral voices in one of the city’s most striking spaces.
For the world premiere, the Tuira Chamber Choir, conducted by Satu Korpi, will perform The Lumen in Finnish while positioned among the audience, rather than arranged in a conventional concert formation.
Melchior will perform the fast radio bursts live, creating a dialogue between cosmic signals and human voices inside the cathedral’s vast acoustic space.
The piece marks a new direction for Melchior, who describes The Lumen as his first composition written specifically for choir.
Its connection to The Logos gives the performance a strong conceptual thread. The installation has been built around fast radio bursts – brief, mysterious signals detected from deep space – and The Lumen brings the human voice into that sonic universe for the first time.
The late-night setting should add to the atmosphere. The performance begins at 10.15pm, placing the work somewhere between concert, installation and ritual.
The event forms part of Lumo Light Festival Oulu, which presents light-based art, installations and performances across the city.
Admission is free.
The Lumen – World Premiere
Andrew Melchior
Tuira Chamber Choir, conducted by Satu Korpi
Oulu Cathedral
Saturday 21 November 2026, 10.15pm
Free admission
The work will bring The Logos to a close after its run in the cathedral since Easter, ending the installation with a live convergence of choir, architecture and signals from the universe.
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