For many years, twins Martin and Peter Wesley-Smith have been conjuring up "double trouble" with music and lyrics ranging from catchy Play School songs to provocative social commentary. This year they celebrated their 70th birthdays and in another double event Canberra Choral Society is joining with Australia's leading a cappella ensemble, The Song Company, to present a concert featuring some of the brothers' enduring children's songs and their song cycle, Black Ribbon. This witty parody of Australian history is subtitled Federation Song Cycle and takes a tongue-in-cheek peek at some Australian icons like Gallipoli, cricket and the ABC, mingled with serious comment on the history of Indigenous recognition.

Black Ribbon was commissioned by the Canberra Choral Society to celebrate the Centenary of Federation in 2001 but it had only one performance. "It's extraordinary that it's taken 14 years to be performed again," director of The Song Company, Roland Peelman, says.

"The work was the idea of past CCS director Robyn Holmes and she and the Wesley-Smith brothers were always forensic in their research. The brothers have never been averse to commenting about political events and they always write something intelligent. It's a piece of satire that plays on more than one level and presents the changing awareness of white versus black Australia."

Peelman describes the work as full of allusions and double entendres. "You have the memories but also the contemporary views."

At the premiere of Black Ribbon in 2001 several choristers found some of the words so uncomfortable to sing that they refused to participate in the performance. Kelly Corner, CCS publicist, says, "But there's a lot of fun as well as cause for thought in the piece. You want people to laugh and then think, 'Oh, should I be laughing at that?' And there are many poignant words. In Dreamtime, after a list of the names of Aboriginal tribes there are the words: 'You are the weakest link. Goodbye!' "

Cleverly, the brothers have woven music that revisits history with their own words: Rule Britannia, operas such as William Tell, Lucia di Lammermoor and Rigoletto, hymn tunes.

Poms all know they'll lose the cricket

Unless Britannia waives the rules.

Or, most apposite to the troubles that currently confront the ABC in The News:

Closed down by Government decree

Poor old ABC

That was the news!

The artistic director of CCS, Tobias Cole, says, "The audience will have no trouble connecting with Martin and Peter's writing because the singers love performing it."

For Cole the concert also offered the opportunity to bring the children of his youth choirs, Turner Trebles and Vocal Envy, on stage

In the first part of the concert, Peelman will provide piano accompaniment in a performance of some Wesley-Smith children's songs, including the favourite, I'm walking in the city.

Peelman will then conduct Black Ribbon and pianist Anthony Smith will accompany the singers.

Peelman and Song Company baritone Mark Donnelly performed in the original presentation of Black Ribbon. In fact The Song Company has collaborated with Martin Wesley-Smith for more than 30 years, describing him as its "unofficial composer-in-residence". For this performance, Cole will temporarily replace one of the ensemble's core members, Anna Fraser, singing with the other regular members of the group.

The Song Company will be back in Canberra on Saturday, August 22 when it will perform Orazio Vecchi's A Night in Sienna at 6pm at Wesley Uniting Church, Forrest. The ensemble will be joined by young Italian theorbo virtuoso, Simone Vallerotonda.

Peelman says this piece was written in Venice in 1603 for a type of secret society – the literati of the time who had been forced underground by the Florentines after the Siege of Sienna.

"The whole thing is a series of games, both serious and playful," he says. "It was Vecchi's attempt to paint the human race, its evils and its virtues – perhaps he's trying to describe the human soul and different types of personality. It's not an opera but a series of sketches. It's one of the undiscovered gems of the 17th century."