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Jenny McLeod  

A baby lying

Duration: 01' 30" Year: 2008
for SA choir and piano

Jenny McLeod  

A baby lying

Duration: 01' 30" Year: 2008
for SA choir and piano with optional men's part

David Hamilton  

A Blessing for Saint Kentigern

 Year: 2008
for 2-part treble-voice choir, SAB choir and piano

  • Programme Note

    This work was commissioned by choral director Stuart Weightman for performance at Saint Kentigern School in Auckland. The brief was to write a work that could be performed by the school’s choir, but which also included a section for the parent’s choral group attached to the school. Also, ideally the work would include something for both groups to sing together. Finally, it should be possible for either of the separate choir sections to stand alone as independent pieces.

    The suggested texts were a blessing from a bookmark given to all the boys at the school, and a blessing often used in chapel services. To the first text I added a couple of lines which closely matched the final section of the second text.

    The work begins with a blessing in unison and then 2 parts for treble voices. This is followed by a blessing for SAB choir, and then finally the two earlier sections are performed simultaneously.

  • Availability

David Hamilton  

A Blessing for this Day

Duration: 02' 00" Year: 2009
for two-part treble voices and piano

David Hamilton  

A Christmas Fanfare

Duration: 06' 00" Year: 2006
for 2 treble-voice choirs, SATB choir, brass trio and orchestra

  • Instrumentation
    brass trio (tpt, hn, tbn); 2222;2220;timp;glock;perc;strings
  • Programme Note

    This short work was written at the request of Rachel Young, conductor of Auckland Youth Choir. The choir’s 2006 Christmas concert was to also involve the Auckland Girls Choir, Auckland Boys Choir, and Aotea Youth Symphony Orchestra. A work which could open the concert, involve all performers, and make use of the performance space was needed. And it had to be easy to learn and quick to put together!

    After considering various texts I approached noted New Zealand hymn writer Marnie Barrel to ask if she had anything suitable as a text. She very kindly wrote the text that I used for the work. Each choir has an energetic presentation of a verse which describes some of the features and feelings of Christmas. This is followed by an Alleluia. Towards the end of the work, the Alleluia becomes the basis of a canon for all the choirs along with the orchestra.

  • Availability

Rosemary Russell  

A Wellington Christmas or Christmas Eve Reflections

Duration: 06' 00" Year: 2000
for three part treble choir with SATB choir and finger cymbals

  • Programme Note

    In the deepness of the night before Christmas, children dream of exciting and wondrous things: so do adults, but they are also fraught with arrangements and planning for the big day. a call for simplicity and remembering the loving and gifting nature of Christmas. This piece is performed “in the round” i.e. the adult choir encircles the audience and the children stand up the central aisle. The adult choir gradually moves around the audience and sings at times in smaller groupings. The audience does not know where the sound will come from next. The children need to be able to hold 3 simple parts. Finger cymbals are used to indicate stars and nocturnal animals create an interesting opening. It is depicts a New Zealand Christmas experience.

  • Availability

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.

  • Availability

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

  • Availability

David Hamilton  

Blessing

Duration: 02' 00" Year: 2008
for SATB choir

  • Programme Note

    When Auckland Choral was asked to sing at the funeral of a highly regarded and long-standing member of the choir, I offered to compose something special for the service. It needed to be a piece that could be quickly learnt. Blessing was the result. The text is by Wellington-based poet Anne Powell who is a member of the Catholic order of the Cenacle Sisters.

    Blessing is a short poem of healing for those “…who walk the earth”, and draws on images of the natural world – the light, the sea, and the wind. The piece is dedicated to the memory of Peter Gibbons, who particularly enjoyed the outdoors.

  • Availability

David Hamilton  

Blessing of the Trinity

Duration: 02' 45" Year: 2008
anthem for SAB choir and piano (or organ)

  • Programme Note

    This short blessing was written for the 50th anniversary of Trinity at Waiake Methodist Church in Auckland. The text is by British clergyman David Adam who for many years was vicar of Holy Island, Lindisfarne. He is now retired but still lives on Lindisfarne. He has published several collections of art, reflections, prayers, and meditations based on the Celtic tradition.

    The text asks for the blessing of the Trinity over all facets of life – work, people, thoughts, in fact all who we each come into contact with each day.

  • Availability