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Carol Shortis  

An Tuiream Bais

Duration: 06' 00" Year: 2009
a Gaelic death dirge for a cappella SSAATTBB choir

  • Programme Note

    The Carmina Gadelica, known in Gaelic as Ortha nan Gaidheal, is a six-volume collection of orally-transmitted prayers, poems, blessings and other material, collected by the folklorist Alexander Carmichael in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in the second half of the nineteenth century. Carmichael subsequently translated this material, and edited the first two volumes. The death dirge An Tuiream Bais was published in the third volume, edited by Alexander’s grandson, James Carmichael Watson. I have set the first, fourth, fifth and sixth verses in the original Gaelic language.

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Anthony Young  

Be Still

Duration: 03' 30" Year: 2009
for SATB choir

  • Programme Note

    Much of my work is a marriage (or balancing act) between the Western art music tradition and my own position in time and place. Along with many forms, I have had a love for sacred choral music from Mediaeval times through to the present, but in not being a Christian, I have felt a reluctance to set text in which I don’t fully believe.

    In reading the work of spiritual author, Eckhart Tolle, I have discovered a new connection with biblical texts. Tolle quotes the line “Be still, and know that I am God” in his book A New Earth, as an example of a universal truth that is at the heart of all religions and belief systems. In this text “God” may be seen as the Christian God, an omnipresent spiritual dimension or the universe personified. This line, and the rest of the text, is from Psalm 46. In setting this text I have found an opening into the world of sacred choral music that aligns with my own beliefs.

    Anthony Young

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Maurice Faulknor  

Easter Morn

 Year: 2004
for organ

Rosemary Russell  

God's Grandeur

Duration: 02' 00" Year: 2003
for SATB choir

David Hamilton  

Holy Night

Duration: 04' 15" Year: 2000
for 8 part treble choir with electronic sounds

Pepe Becker  

Hoquetus Sanctus

Duration: 04' 20" Year: 2008
for vocal octet

  • Instrumentation
    SSAATTBB with clapping and/or hand percussion (stones or wooden clap-sticks)
  • Programme Note

    This work was written as a commission for Baroque Voices, with funding from Creative NZ, to be premiered at the Baroque Voices “Alleluia: a newe work!” concert in May 2008. The concept of the performance is to juxtapose Contemporary New Zealand works with Medieval European ones – and in this case, Hoquetus Sanctus pairs well with Hoquetus David (written by Guillaume de Machaut in the 14th Century), as it explores the idea of hocket, where vocal lines are ‘shared’ between different voices, sometimes jumping from one to another and overlapping each other – however, it can equally well be performed in any choral concert.

    Hoquetus Sanctus is a setting of the Latin Sanctus text for a capella chamber choir or small vocal ensemble.

  • Availability

Michael Bell  

Magnificat Antiquitatis

Duration: 1h 00' 00" Year: 2007
Sacred canticle in Latin text

Chris Adams  

Mass for Double Choir

Duration: 13' 00" Year: 2005, r. 2013
setting of the traditional Latin Mass for double choir

John Rimmer  

Motet for Hildegard

Duration: 12' 00" Year: 2008
for soprano, oboe and electronic sounds

  • Programme Note

    In composing Motet for Hildegard, I imagined Hildegard von Bingen communing with nature while singing her song O Virga Mediatrix (O branch who mediates for us) to the universe above. She listens to the planets as they emit their ‘Harmony of the Spheres’ with certain pitches from her song. The nearby Rhine echoes parts of her song in its occasional turbulent displays. She hears a sequence of notes from her song in the strange resonances of an angelic choir and also in an eastern reed instrument. Then she listens to the morning stars singing and is reminded of a passage from the Book of Job. Finally she hears her own voice in the quiet eddies of the river.

    The electronic music is based partly on tiny fragments of pre-recorded soprano voice and oboe which are resonated and also split into many grains of sounds. In contrast, the ‘harmony of the spheres’ timbres appear as simple granulated sine tones which move in elliptical orbits..

    In the middle of these textures Wendy Dixon’s original recording of Hildegard’s song appears phrase by phrase after which the live soprano and oboe become increasingly florid in keeping with the ornate nature of Hildegard’s song O Virga Mediatrix.

    Other medieval aspects are enhanced by intervals such as the perfect 5th sounding at the ends of phrases, by the harmonic style of organum in the opening and closing phrases of the voice and the oboe and also by the structural use of Golden Section and Fibonacci proportions.

    The process of basing a piece on an existing song seemed to parallel the work of 15th and 16th century composers who often based their sacred pieces – Motets and movements of the Mass on existing plainsong, hence the title of this piece.

    Motet for Hildegard was first performed by Wendy Dixon, soprano and Diana Doherty, oboe in the Recital Hall East, Sydney Conservatorium on 7 December 2008.

  • Availability

Andrew Baldwin  

O vos omnes

Duration: 03' 45" Year: 2006, r. 2007
for SSATBB choir

  • Instrumentation
    soprano soloist from choir
  • Programme Note

    O Vos Omnes was written for the choir in mid-2006 in the first year of the composer’s residency at the Cathedral, and is scored for SSATBB choir with soprano soloist creating a rich harmonic texture, and evoking a solemn mood. Hallmarks of the composer’s style are evident here: the use of the floating soprano solo; the doubling of the melodic material in soprano and tenor or alto and bass; the six part texture; the deft use of dark keys; the rather long musical phrases and paragraphs; modal harmonies with added tones; and an always palpable emotion in the music.

  • Availability