Seventeen-year-old Juliette Pfeil has performed with the Sydney Children's Choir at NSW Parliament House as part of a musical project exploring the history and role of the institution.
Ms Pfeil, a young Indigenous woman from Sydney's Lower North Shore, has been a member of the Sydney Children's Choir for the past decade and was among the choristers who performed in Voices of Parliament on Sunday.
The immersive performance was presented in collaboration with the Parliament of NSW and featured newly commissioned works by Australian composer Alice Chance.
The project used the chambers, corridors and meeting spaces of Parliament House as performance areas, with audiences moving through the building as choristers performed works inspired by its history, traditions and stories.
For Ms Pfeil, the project provided an opportunity to explore the connection between politics, history and the arts.
She described the experience of bringing the different areas together through performance.
"It's just so cool to explore not only the history, but like blending arts with politics, which I think is really cool," Ms Pfeil said.
Over the course of a school term, members of the choir learned about Parliament House and the stories behind the commissioned works before rehearsing and performing them in the building.
The process allowed the choristers to build their understanding of the material before bringing it to audiences.
"I think it's been cool to not only learn about it, but then to go and practise and now perform them, just immersing ourselves and that has been really cool," Ms Pfeil said.
Composer Alice Chance drew on parliamentary debates, historical archives and the spaces within Parliament House when developing the works for the project.
Ms Pfeil said the composition helped connect each piece with the part of Parliament House where it was performed.
"Our composer, Alice Chance, she's so cool. She's put a lot of like effort into really developing a background to these pieces and making them really like their form - it makes sense in how they're being sung and where they're being sung," Ms Pfeil said.
The performance also gave the young choristers an opportunity to consider the role young people can play in discussions about Australia's future.
Ms Pfeil said young people should have opportunities to understand and engage with political institutions.
"I think it's so important for young people and young voices to be heard in Parliament because we are really like the future and it's our decisions that are going to shape what Australia looks like tomorrow," she said.
Audiences were guided through NSW Parliament House during the performance, with music and storytelling used to present the building and its history in a different format.
For Ms Pfeil, becoming familiar with Parliament House at a young age was another important part of the experience.
"I think knowing Parliament House at such a young age is really important," she said.
Voices of Parliament brought together young performers, music and parliamentary history, while giving members of the Sydney Children's Choir the opportunity to perform across one of the state's main political institutions.
