Price range: £35.00 through £40.00
Lock up your valuables! Join us at Leighton House to welcome Ned Kelly to London.
Thursday 26 November 2026
Leighton House, 12 Holland Park Road, London W14 8LZ
7pm for a 7.30pm start.
Australian song, history and storytelling with three former Tait Awardees: Christopher Hillier, baritone, Daniella Sicari, soprano, and Coady Green, pianist. Featuring George Palmer’s Letters from a Black Snake, songs by Sally Whitwell and Elena Kats-Chernin, and footage from The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906).
General admission £40. Tait Friends £35. Refreshments follow the concert.
Produced by Australian Contemporary Opera Company (ACOCO)
Welcomed to London by the Tait Memorial Trust
Australian song, history and storytelling
Letters from
a Black Snake
Lock up your valuables!
Join us at Leighton House to welcome Ned Kelly to London.
Daniella Sicari, soprano
Coady Green, piano
Thursday
26 November 2026
Leighton House
12 Holland Park Road
London W14 8LZ
7pm
for 7.30pm
£40 general admission
£35 Tait Friends
Ned Kelly’s letters,
set to music
The Tait Memorial Trust welcomes the Australian Contemporary
Opera Company (ACOCO) to London with its production of
Letters from a Black Snake, a concert of Australian
song, history and storytelling featuring three former Tait
Awardees: Christopher Hillier, baritone, Daniella Sicari,
soprano, and Coady Green, pianist.
George Palmer’s setting of Ned Kelly’s letters is the featured
work. Plain-spoken and personal, Kelly’s words explore family,
hardship, loyalty, injustice and survival in colonial Victoria.
Three former Tait Awardees
Christopher Hillier
Baritone
Bringing operatic experience, detailed musicianship and
dramatic presence to Ned Kelly’s words.
Daniella Sicari
Soprano
Performing The Birds by Sally Whitwell and
Eliza’s Song by Elena Kats-Chernin.
Coady Green
Piano
Joining Christopher Hillier and Daniella Sicari at the
piano throughout the programme.
Australian stories in song
Palmer’s portrait of Ned Kelly sits alongside songs by Sally
Whitwell and Elena Kats-Chernin, moving between wit, lyricism
and theatrical flair.
George Palmer
Letters from a Black Snake
Words by Ned Kelly.
Christopher Hillier, baritone.
Coady Green, piano.
Sally Whitwell
The Birds
Words by Christina Rossetti.
Daniella Sicari, soprano.
Coady Green, piano.
Elena Kats-Chernin
Eliza’s Song
Daniella Sicari, soprano.
Coady Green, piano.
Featuring footage from The Story of the Kelly Gang
(1906), directed by Charles Tait.
A Tait story, 1906 to 1965
The Story of the Kelly Gang
The performance features footage from
The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), recognised as
the world’s first feature-length narrative film.
Charles Tait directed the film, which the Tait brothers
made with film pioneers Millard Johnson and William
Gibson. Much of the filming took place at Charterisville,
near Heidelberg, Victoria.
Sutherland, Bonynge and Sir Frank Tait
Sir Frank Tait, father of the Trust’s founder Isla Baring
OAM, helped create the film as a young man and is believed
to appear on screen. Fifty-nine years later, he produced
the celebrated 1965 Australian tour of Joan Sutherland
and Richard Bonynge with the Sutherland-Williamson
International Grand Opera Company.
An evening at Leighton House
Thursday 26 November 2026.
Arrivals from 7pm for a 7.30pm start.
General admission
Tait Friends
After the concert, meet the performers and fellow guests
over refreshments.
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Gift of Sunday Reed, 1977.