We may view with horror all the violence of the Middle East but this program by The Song Company is all about improving understanding.

As artistic director of the ensemble, Antony Pitts says, "The program includes music from a long time ago and it's about the long view, about setting the story in a bigger context and finding a better way to understand people within that conflict."

The Song Company is bringing young Palestinian singer, Oday Al Khatib, on tour for this second concert of their 2017 season, The Attraction of Opposites. It will be Oday's first trip to Australia but he has toured with Arabic music ensembles across Europe since he was first discovered by the musician and founder of the Al Kamandjati music school, Ramzi Aburedwan, in the Al Fawwar refugee camp in Palestine.

When Oday was held in prison, suspected of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers – a charge later dropped – his voice echoed across the prison walls as he sang the songs that he had known since he was a small child.

"It's partly the unique quality of his voice that I wanted to blend with our ensemble," Pitts says.

"We want to see how one tradition shapes another tradition."

Pitt has written a cantata, voices with a string quartet, inspired by the emotion and the outlook that Oday brings to his performances, "but I've decided not to do that at this concert – I'll leave it for another time. It works really well with Ramzi and the whole ensemble."

The skill of The Song Company's singers is evident as they sing in the Arabic language, albeit phonetically and not from Arabic script. Arrangements by Ramzi Aburedwan and Arabic songs form one part of the program.

"Then we're singing early Western music that's all about lamentation and penitence – it goes back to the fall of Jerusalem."

There are works by the 16th century English composer, Thomas Tallis, by the Italian Renaissance composer Gregorio Allegri and by the prolific 17th century English composer, Henry Purcell.

Pitts says, "The Lamentations of Jeremiah by Tallis links in absolutely to the present-day Jewish problems and we're also doing some lesser-known but really superb works by Tallis. We're doing Allegri's Miserere. Everyone knows about the famous top C, but we're going higher still so it's worth coming to the concert just to hear that! From Purcell we have Remember not, Lord, our offences." All this splendid polyphony with its theme of passion-tide worship is a moving precursor to Christian Easter celebrations.

Pitt says that they will include some other pieces that are actually arrangements of instrumental pieces by Ramzi, "and these are quite different – quite upbeat – a very different flavour. I'm hoping that everything will fit together."

He explains that the Palestinian/Israeli situation is all in the background but not explicitly so. As a youth Ramzi Aburedwan took part in violent resistance but he turned from that to positive action through music and education founding Al Kamandjati Association with its purpose of bringing classical music to underprivileged Palestinian children. Oday is a product of and part of that movement which is about finding positive ways of coming to terms with the Palestinian situation.

Pitts says, "Although we're not addressing it directly we hope to present the different sides of the conflict. When you hear Oday sing you are transported and you see a completely different picture from the one that you have of all the violence in the Middle East."

For Pitts the importance of every program is, on the one hand, the sounds, and on the other, the story. "So I try to make programs that engage and each half is one narrative. That's what I'm going to try to do with this. Yes, for me the greatest strength of a program like this is the beauty of the sonic experience and a narrative that makes people think about the subject."

A great strength of the ensemble is its ability to entertain, often with a wonderful sense of humour. "Well, we had that in our last concert about Cornelius Cardew," Pitts says, "but this one is a different kettle of fish. It's serious but it's not all sad. There are some lovely uplifting moments. I always think that when you go to a Song Company concert you look at the singers' faces and they're communicating not only with their voices but with their personalities through their eyes and their body movement – it's all part of the performance."

Pitts mentions that the ensemble held its first SongCo Lab summer school in January and that two young artists who took part will be joining the ensemble's six regular singers on this tour.