Classical Music

The Island Itself is a setting of the poem Homage to Omey by Irish poet, Joan McBreen. The imagery of the sea conveyed in the text is reflected through lilting, syncopated rhythms. The melody is suppo...

This setting of Edward Caswall's well-known text shows all the hallmarks of McGlade's characteristic style, with changing time signatures, beguiling chromaticisms, and a beautiful, fluid melody. Chang...

This compact anthem for unaccompanied choir is the result of another successful collaboration between Bob Chilcott and the poet Charles Bennett. Well-crafted and tender melodic lines are shared betwee...

Setting words by the composer, One of these days is an affirmatory piece with pop-inspired rhythms and harmonies. The scat syllables and repeating patterns of the lower parts provide a rich cushion fo...

This atmospheric setting of the celebrated poem 'April Rain Song' by (the Harlem Renaissance writer) Langston Hughes captures the sense of comfort and security while listening to rainfall. The ebb and...

Taken at a slow processional tempo this work has a predominantly canonic texture. The syncopated passages are at once sombre and sensual, and the balancing homphonic phrases achieve real power. A shor...

This is one of Clarke's many pieces on love, and one of the best. It combines the English modality of earlier times with foretastes of the adventurous chromaticism of her later work. It is a lovely pi...

This is an appropriately aching setting of Sir Philip Sidney's poem of unending desire and longing. There are gorgeous chromatics and enharmonics and a masterful use of a triplet pattern which becomes...

Weep you no more, sad fountains is a modern take on the Elizabethan lute-song, integrating the characteristic alternations of minor and major, fondness for cross-relations, and vivid word-painting. Th...

Music, when soft voices die combines aspects of nineteenth-century English pastoral style with some of the tonal adventurousness of Vaughan Williams's Shakespeare settings. This is an exceptionally be...

This beautiful arrangement of the 17th-century lullaby features subtle jazz inflections and artful imitation. The text seeks to create a calm and comforting atmosphere for sleep, which Parry emulates...

In this sensitive choral arrangement of 'Nimrod' from Elgar's Enigma Variations, Michael Higgins sets the Eucharistic hymn 'O salutaris Hostia', written by St Thomas Aquinas for the Feast of Corpus Ch...

The shades of Finzi and Vaughan Williams are strongly present in these three delightful unaccompanied choral settings, and yet the style and execution are wholly Rutter's own. O mistress mine is a jau...

On the Air (Dear Vaccine) discusses the optimism for a post-COVID world and, particularly, the desire to sing together again. For the text, poet Seán Street drew inspiration from 'Dear Vaccine', which...

Edward Margetson was born in St. Kitts, British West Indies, immigrating to the United States in 1919. One of only a few published choral works by the composer, A few more years shall roll sets a hymn...

A beautifully simple setting of familiar words by Langston Hughes, Bring me all your dreams showcases Harris's effective homophonic writing and rich harmonic palette. The piece is incredibly atmospher...

The Gift to Sing is an unaccompanied part-song with a text by American writer and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson that speaks to the way the power of song can help to overcome dark times. G...

A Birthday sets a poem of the same title by Christina Rossetti. Chydenius reflects the vivid imagery in the text of the verses through beautiful vocal lines with swirling countermelodies. The choruses...

This song skillfully blends a classic poem, Christina Rossetti's Uphill, with a relaxed, lightly jazzy style. Expanding from three- to six-part harmony, the chordal texture allows for strong annunciat...

Written in an a cappella style with scat accompaniment, "A Tree is a Song" is a joyful celebration of the connections and affinity found in nature and how wisdom and knowledge can be passed on 'as a m...

Stuart Beatch's a boy & a boy sets a romantic and ultimately tragic text by poet Matthew Stepanic. Written as a response to Eric Whitacre's well-known work A Boy and a Girl, Beatch describes this piec...

Rajasekar has drawn on the melodic and rhythmic grammar of both traditions of Indian classical music, Hindustani and Carnatic, to create a unique choral celebration of springtime. The meaning of the t...

This glorious, heartfelt, and at times agonizing work sets a prescient text by Nicholas Andreas Vrenios, a victim of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988. McDowall employs vocal embellishments, harmonic diss...

This short work by Marques L. A. Garrett sets a beautiful and poignant text by Paul Laurence Dunbar that tells of the healing effects of music and how our own music-making can spread joy to those arou...