for soprano solo, SATB, piano, bass, drums and optional alto saxophone Will Todd's Mass in Blue is a dynamic, uplifting, and highly popular jazz setting of the Latin mass. The work features driving grooves and blues harmonies, with provision for short piano solos (notated or improvised) and great moments of musical interplay between soprano soloist and choir. Itas a worthy centre-piece for any concert. For this edition the composer has revised the work, making it more widely accessible. A set of notated parts for jazz trio (piano, with chord symbols, bass, and drum kit) plus an optional alto sax part is available separately on sale and on hire/rental. A full backing CD, recorded by the Will Todd Trio, is also available on sale.

Camerata: A Guide to Organizing and Directing Small Choruses distinguishes itself from all other works on choral conducting by starting at the very beginning the conception and purpose of an ensemble and continuing through all other aspects of rehearsing and organizing a chorus to performance and reception. Wenk offers basic information on getting started, recruiting singers, planning programs, rehearsing music, publicizing concerts, sharing responsibilities, financing the operation, knowing the law, and finally getting better. He also offers detailed suggestions for creating an executive group to manage the choir as well ideas for repertoire and programming. In addition to a step-by-step guide, Camerata provides a wealth of supplementary material including a prospectus, a statement of goals and means, programs, organizational documents, a singer s guide, documents for organizing a folksong competition, a list of websites for publishers and choral federations, and an annotated bibliography of works on choral conducting. Wenk also includes more than twenty original Christmas carols and carol arrangements for performance by your small chorus. This work will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in starting a new choral organization or improving an existing ensemble. Although the book focuses on chamber choirs, Wenk s practical suggestions, based on more than forty years of experience as a choral conductor, can be easily applied to any choral organization."

Camerata: A Guide to Organizing and Directing Small Choruses distinguishes itself from all other works on choral conducting by starting at the very beginning the conception and purpose of an ensemble and continuing through all other aspects of rehearsing and organizing a chorus to performance and reception. Wenk offers basic information on getting started, recruiting singers, planning programs, rehearsing music, publicizing concerts, sharing responsibilities, financing the operation, knowing the law, and finally getting better. He also offers detailed suggestions for creating an executive group to manage the choir as well ideas for repertoire and programming. In addition to a step-by-step guide, Camerata provides a wealth of supplementary material including a prospectus, a statement of goals and means, programs, organizational documents, a singer s guide, documents for organizing a folksong competition, a list of websites for publishers and choral federations, and an annotated bibliography of works on choral conducting. Wenk also includes more than twenty original Christmas carols and carol arrangements for performance by your small chorus. This work will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in starting a new choral organization or improving an existing ensemble. Although the book focuses on chamber choirs, Wenk s practical suggestions, based on more than forty years of experience as a choral conductor, can be easily applied to any choral organization."

Renaissance Music for the Choral Conductor: A Practical Guide addresses the study and performance of Renaissance music in a way that is understandable to the musician at any level. It describes how to find a good edition, mark scores, rehearse, and conduct this type of music. It explains complex ideas from proportion to linear analysis and supplies step-by-step instructions on presenting madrigal dinners ideal vehicles for the presentation of Renaissance music. This guide contains traditional toasts, stage directions, lists of appropriate music, and even instruction on selected Renaissance dances. Summer also includes a large number of musical scores to aid in his explanations on marking scores, conducting, and analyzing polyphonic music. Renaissance Music for the Choral Conductor is the ideal textbook for choral literature and choral conducting classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It can serve as a reference for anyone who wishes to program and explore music from this period in greater depth, including church musicians and conductors of professional ensembles. The book concludes with a bibliography, glossary, and selected discography.

for SATB unaccompanied The graceful and playful melody begins with a soprano solo followed by mixed voices. Mostly unaccompanied, the organ may enter on the third verse if needed.

for SSATB and organ This attractive and uplifting anthem sets the text of the Eastertide Vidi aquam antiphon. Different parts of the text are treated to contrasting musical ideas, including extended melismatic upper-voice passages and mainly homophonic full-choir sections, and the undulating organ part represents the flowing water of the text. A welcome addition to a service or concert programme for all fans of Gabriel Jackson's music. Commissioned by the Friends of Lincoln Cathedral for their 75th anniversary and first performed by the Choir of Lincoln Cathedral with Charles Harrison (organ), directed by Aric Prentice, on 25 June 2011.

for SATB with keyboard Setting a 15th century text, this popular carol on the birth of Jesus is flowing and expressive. It has been recorded by the Cambridge Singers (directed by John Rutter) on the Collegium CD Christmas Night (COLCD 106). Full scores and parts for John Rutters accompaniment for string orchestra are available on sale.

Full score for John Rutter's joyful, sprightly carol Rejoice and sing!, which has been offprinted from Sir David Willcocks: A Celebration in Carols. With its uplifting 7/8 time signature, memorable melody, rich and diverse textures, and delightful orchestral accompaniment, this carol is a fitting tribute to one of the great names synonymous with Christmas: David Willcocks.

for SATB (with divisions) and organ Set to Ursula Vaughan Williams's celebrated paean to the patron saint of music, this work is by turns joyous and reflective. Rich harmonies, shifting tonalities, and expressive melodies combine to evoke the changing moods explored within the text. The poignant Andante section midway through the piece, sung by a solo soprano, is a pivotal moment; it gives way to increasingly jubilant and powerful writing that brings the work to an ecstatic conclusion.

Ever since its premiere in 1994, Thomas Ades' first string quartet, Arcadiana has been captivating audiences with its evocations of vanishing, vanished, and imaginary idylls. Of all the work's movements it is O Albion that has most captured the imagination of listeners: seventeen sighing, devotissimo bars that, in only three minutes, conjure a whole emotional world. This arrangement for SSAATTBB voices was created by Jim Clements for vocal group Voces8, who recorded it for Decca in 2018. It sets a line from William Blake's Visions of the Daughters of Albion: 'The Daughters of Albion hear her woes, and echo back her sighs.' A piano part is included for rehearsal.

for SATB (with divisions) and piano or organ The third movement of McDowall's powerful Da Vinci Requiem, I obey thee, O Lord is a compelling pairing of the 'Lacrimosa' text from the Latin Missa pro defunctis with extracts from the Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, and has a poignant, tender simplicity. The composer has reworked the keyboard part from the parent work to facilitate performance by piano or organ.

Choral music is now undoubtedly the foremost genre of participatory music making, with more people singing in choirs than ever before. Written by a team of leading international practitioners and scholars, this Companion addresses the history of choral music, its emergence and growth worldwide and its professional practice. The volume sets out a historical survey of the genre and follows with a kaleidoscopic bird's eye view of choral music from all over the world. Chapters vividly portray the emergence and growth of choral music from its Quranic antecedents in West and Central Asia to the baroque churches of Latin America, representing its global diversity. Uniquely, the book includes a pedagogical section where several leading choral musicians write about the voice and the inner workings of a choir and give their professional insights into choral practice. This Companion will appeal to choral scholars, directors and performers alike.

This book offers an overview of issues related to the regulated, formal organization of sound and speech in verse intended for singing. Particularly, it is concerned with the structural properties and underlying mechanisms involved in the association of lyrics and music. While in spoken verse the underlying metrical scheme is grounded in the prosody of the language in which it is composed, in sung verse the structure is created by the mapping of specific prosodic units of the text (syllables, moras, tones, etc.) onto the rhythmic-melodic structure provided by the tune. Studying how this mapping procedure takes place across different musical genres and styles is valuable for what it can add to our knowledge of language and music in general, and also for what it can teach us about individual languages and poetic traditions. In terms of empirical coverage, the collection includes a wide variety of (Western) languages and metrical/musical forms, ranging from the Latin hexameter to the Norwegian stev, from the French chant courtois to the Sardinian mutetu longu. Readers interested in formal analyses of vocal music, or in metrics and linguistics, will find useful insights here.

In Conversations with Joseph Flummerfelt: Thoughts on Conducting, Music, and Musicians, Donald Nally presents a window into the mind and heart of one of America's most celebrated and distinguished choral conductors. Through questions from Nally, his former student, Flummerfelt provides a captivating narrative tracing his formative years and influences, his most important artistic collaborations, and his approach to conducting and music. The conversation further develops into a philosophical discussion on cultural influences and obstacles in art, how one teaches conducting, and the foundations of ensemble music-making. Through these intimate conversations, Flummerfelt reveals his life, art, and ideas, from his close collaborations with some of the world's greatest orchestral conductors to his work as Artistic Director of Westminster Choir College. The topics range from his approaches to style, conducting gesture, sound generation, and choral sound to the psychology of music-making and the contemporary environment of art-making. Nally's interview style captures the energy and rhythm of Flummerfelt's speech so that the conductor's "voice" and passion is easily perceived, and the material is presented as a highly organized yet spontaneous and free conversation. Flummerfelt discusses his early career influences from such musicians as Robert Shaw and Nadia Boulanger and reveals his thoughts on composers like Igor Stravinsky, Samuel Barber, Benjamin Britten, and Olivier Messiaen. The more than 30 photos present a visual record of Flummerfelt's collaborations with many of the great musicians of our time, and a biographical timeline, a list of collaborating orchestras and conductors, and a discography are also included.

The fusion of text with music is one of the most powerful methods by which a composer can express emotion to an audience, yet, all too often, the diction of choral groups is lacking to such a degree as to make the text unintelligible. So argues Duane R. Karna, who in The Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet in the Choral Rehearsal brings together 30 essays by experts from around the world to describe how the character symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) can be used by singers in the choral rehearsal. In an effort to conquer one of the greatest challenges facing choral directors and their choirs, contributors explore the use of the IPA system in a vast range of languages. Readers will find essays devoted to the use of IPA on matters of lyric diction for the following tongues: Baltic Languages, Basque, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Dutch, Ecclesiastical Latin, English, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Germanic Latin, Greek, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, and Swedish. Holding firmly to the belief that basic instruction in IPA character is part of a choir's training, Karna and his contributors see enormous potential for choirs to expand considerably their foreign-language repertoire and save considerable rehearsal time. The Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet in the Choral Rehearsal is the ideal primer for choral directors and choirmasters as well as choir members.

for SA and piano In this charming piece for upper voices and piano, Ramsey's characterization of the fairy's monologue from Act 2, Scene 1 of A Midsummer Night's Dream is both fun and imaginative. The rhythmic fluidity, driving piano part, and clever accentuation perfectly complement Shakespeare's metre and rhyme scheme and bring the text to life. Over hill, over dale was originally published in the collection Hark, hark, the lark.

The human voice an incredibly beautiful and expressive instrument, and when multiple voices are unified in tone and purpose a powerful statement is realized. No wonder people have always wanted to sing in a communal context-a desire apparently stemming from a deeply rooted human instinct. Consequently, choral performance has often been related historically to human rituals and ceremonies, especially rites of a religious nature. This Historical Dictionary of Choral Music examines choral music and practice in the Western world from the Medieval era to the 21st century, focusing mostly on familiar figures like Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Britten. But its scope is considerably broader, and it includes all sorts of music-religious, secular, and popular-from sources throughout the world. It contains a chronology, an introduction, a bibliography, and more than 1,000 cross-referenced dictionary entries on important composers, genres, conductors, institutions, styles, and technical terms of choral music.