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Let's talk choral music.

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Barmymoo:
Low notes are always harder in concert, I find.

Today we sang at a wedding, of a former chorister from the college. We sang Parry's I was Glad as the bride entered, Willan's Rise Up My Love before the marriage itself, Howells' Behold, Monteverdi's Cantate Domini, and an arrangement of The Beatles' All You Need is Love (complete with surprise trumpet) during the signing of the register, and the Hallelujah Chorus as they left. The hymns were Love Divine and Jerusalem.

If anyone wanted a primer in Anglican choral music, that would be it.

Redball:
I may have to find some of those songs, on iTunes or whatever. I did that with some of Paul's, I think, and listened to some or all of the music he posted, then forgot to say so! Just back from New York tonight, and insufficiently memorized for tomorrow's concert in Detroit.

Redball:
In northern Michigan, a Congregational church was the venue for a performance of Karl Jenkins' "The Armed Man." It was performed with a video of scenes illustrating the work, including battle and reconciliation. It includes a Muslim call to prayer, two minutes out of the 67 or so. The church leaders excised the audio of the call to prayer, though they apparently left in the video. I'd never heard of the work, but I downloaded it. It's dramatic.

Barmymoo:
I've sung the Armed Man, it is incredibly moving. We sang it to the memory of the father of two of the choir, who had died suddenly - the performance was already planned when he died, so we dedicated it to him. I don't remember whether we included the call to prayer; I think we did, but I can't think who would have sung it as I don't remember any Muslim children in the choir.

Choir week has now finished; we had a concert in a local town where we sang some nice Christmas music, three carol services with some adventy music thrown in (we missed Advent itself because term ended before Advent Sunday!) and a big NSPCC benefit concert in London. We also started rehearsing the music for the CD we're recording in January, of music by Philip Cooke. He's a modern composer who writes some slightly odd (to my mind) music and, apparently from what we sang through last week, some very lovely music. We were pleasantly surprised by it - we expected it to be far harder to learn. The fact that it's easier than we thought means we'll be able to polish it more and get it really good for the CD.

Recording CDs is weird; I did it for the first time last year with music for Alan Bullard. By the end we know the music really, really well and everyone's voice is exhausted.

Redball:
One advantage to this thread is searching out what others are singing. But Cooke seems to have absolutely no discography yet. I see at least one of his pieces published on his site, and I suppose I might hear it by submitting it to my music OCR app. Can't find him on Youtube either.
Any of you ever hear the Prayer Cycle? Dramatic music, in part because of its theme and how it was produced.
Or the sound track from Le Choriste?

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