Gang-gang. Spooky Acoustic

Now Canberrans are soon to hear one of these deeply manly songs that a Georgian man sings to his bull ("One essentially useless masculine species singing to another" Stephen Taberner thinks). The bloke-to-bull ditty Chela will be part of a pioneering concert at the newsworthy, much-fought-over-in-the-past Fitters Workshop at Kingston.

Stephen Taberner is 'spookmeister" of the famous but seldom-seen-and-heard-in Canberra Spooky Men's Chorale. The Chorale has been known to haunt an occasional National Folk Festival but of course has never before performed in the Fitters Workshop. For precious few folk have, ever, performed there because in spite of its renowned, beautiful and "positively medicinal" acoustic it has been till quite recently the focus of a bitter 2009 to 2012 tug-of-war between Canberra's visual artists and Canberra's musicians.

But now that movers and shakers have decided that the space is to be left unaltered, for music's sake, the Workshop is set to become a place for small to medium ensembles to perform. The Spooky Men's Chorale concert of 22 November will be the historic, well worth singing about first trial of a model of public hire of the Workshop for concert-giving.

Giselle Nathan, Canberra organiser for the Spooky Men and their concert here, is joyous about it all. She has been passionate about the preservation of the old building for music and rhapsodies that its acoustic is "positively medicinal" for audiences. She says that it's a place where sound flows, warmly and gently, enveloping the listener, so that "when you close your eyes it's hard to tell where the sound is coming from".

"It's a million dollar acoustic."

A million dollar acoustic would be wasted on some performers (so let's hope it's never wasted on Australian country music's imitation cowboys and cowgirls singing about Australia in fake Texan accents) but it won't be wasted on the Spooky Men's Chorale. Its fans will tell you that the Chorale specialises in lyrical, often specially-composed satirical and philosophical songs, for which it is important that an audience hears every word and every dulcet tone.

And so the concert is being touted as in some ways "an acoustic test concert" testing the precious space. Taberner told us on Thursday that because of the event's "test' elements some of the works chosen will be especially resonant (the Georgian's deeply manly song to his deeply masculine bull will be one of them). What's more he hopes, in the second half of the concert, to move choristers and audience around a bit (even mingling them) not only for the fun it will be but also to experimentally put the venerable venue's million-dollar acoustic through its paces.

Nathan thinks the pioneering concert* will have a kind of twofold appeal, beguiling both the Spooky Men's devotees and those who have championed the Workshop's preservation for musical purposes.

And while on the subject of resonant sounds we bring you our regular feature Koel WatchListen really because they're very hard to see).

Fresh reports of Canberrans hearing their first Koel of the season keep coming in but today your columnist has a report of his own.

Rapture! There is at least one Koel in the parly triangle! At 8pm on Wednesday I heard one calling from trees alongside the National Rose Garden just opposite the Treasury Building.

It revived my spirits for I had just limped away from the Reel McCoy film society's National Library screening of the uncompromisingly miserable Swedish classic The Phantom Carriage. Just as I thought I could never be happy again, the call of the Koel retrieved me from awful, tubercular 19th century Sweden and brought me home to blissful 21st century Canberra.

*SPOOKY MEN AT THE FITTERS' WORKSHOP (Wentworth Avenue, Kingston, next to the Canberra Glassworks) is on Saturday 22 November at 2pm. Tickets at www.eventbrite.com.au or at the door.