Conductor Joanna Tomlinson has commissioned this setting of First World War poet Siegfred Sassoon’s most famous poem for Farnham Youth Choir. The poem encompasses a joyful reaction to the end of the war and perhaps too the way that an outbreak of singing in the trenches had banished the horror. The setting develops ideas inspired by the poem’s sudden universal joy and bird imagery and its recurring main theme repeats and dies away to the…
Written for baritone soloist, mixed chorus and orchestra, this is a joyful celebration of singing. Words by Emily Dickinson, Rabindranath Tagore, Sara Teasdale and Abraham Cowley in their differing ways all examine the special powers and attributes of singing. In amongst them comes an energetic dance movement sung entirely to nonsense syllables inspired by Scottish mouth music and vocal exercises. The finale sets a poem by Robert Herrick and builds to a climactic conclusion on…
To mark the completion of the rebuilding of the church organ and in celebration of the church’s strong choral tradition, St Michael’s has commissioned this festival Anthem. A text drawn from Dryden and Milton, framed by the Latin Gradual Locus Iste, celebrates the combined power of “the sacred organ’s praise” and “full-voiced choir” to bring “All Heaven before mine eyes”.