for SSA or SSS and organ or strings Originally published in a version for mixed voices, this much-loved Rutter carol has been adapted by the composer for performance by upper-voice choirs. Full scores and sets of parts, specially composed for the upper-voice version, are available on sale and on hire/rental.

Passion Music continues the fusion of jazz and choral music so successfully blended in Will Todd's Mass in Blue. The structure highlights different points in the Passion story, beginning with a new setting of 'Greater love has no man' and including an evocative Stabat Mater, a movement focusing on the seven last words of Christ, and a setting of 'Were you there when they crucified my Lord?'. While some sections are reflective, Todd also makes full use of his understanding of energetic jazz and gospel. The vocal soloist is given plenty of expressive freedom, singing both with the choir and independently to achieve the characteristic jazz-soul style. The seven-piece jazz accompaniment, which is presented in the vocal score as a piano reduction for rehearsal only, completes the ensemble. The vocal score is available on sale and hire. A complete backing track and individual rehearsal tracks for the vocal parts are also available to download.

In Choral Masterpieces: Major and Minor, historian Nicholas Tarling surveys the landscape of choral works, some standard masterpieces that are commonly performed by choruses around the world, others deserving a second, closer look. As noted in the foreword by Uwe Grodd , music director of the Auckland Choral Society, this work "is a collection of essays about a number of outstanding works, including Beethoven's Miss Solemnis and Britten's War Requiem, but he also invites attention to lesser masterpieces. If the choral movement, which includes both singers and listeners, is to survive, new works must be created and repertory expanded. The book is an easy and captivating read even if you are not a chorister." Choral Masterpieces: Major and Minor features short essays on over 28 works, from major masterpieces such as Handel's Messiah and Bach's St. Matthew's Passion to off-the-beaten path choral works such as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Hiawatha and Frederick Delius' A Mass of Life. Throughout, Tarling offers assessments that sparkle with unique insights and at the same time ground listener's in the historical contexts of the work's production and performance. Each work is transformed in Tarling's able hands from musical work into a window into the mind and milieu of the composer. Choral Masterpieces: Major and Minor mixes choral mainstays with works that demand revisiting. Choral singers and their audiences, as well as choral societies and their directions and promoters, will find ample food for thoughts in these meditations on the choral tradition.

This study represents a thorough investigation of a polyphonic vocal village tradition in Bistritsa, Bulgaria. Outsiders describe the narrow intervals of these songs as being "maximally rough", while the singers themselves experience their performance as smooth, beautiful and pleasant. Almost identical polyphonic traditions can be found in places sometimes thousands of kilometers apart. This inquiry is carried out within a very broad and comparative context, whereby historical sources, the origin of different constituents and etymologies as well as electronic sound analysis are taken into account. The results are stunning and ever more relevant - and not just for ethnomusicologists: The babi or grannies of Bistritsa and their songs have been inscribed on UNESCO's List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Mankind in 2008.

In lucid and engaging style, Stinson explores Bach's 'Great Eighteen' Organ Chorales - among Bach's most celebrated works for organ - from a wide range of historical and analytical perspectives, including the models used by Bach in conceiving the individual pieces, his subsequent compilation of these works into a collection, and his compositional process as preserved by the autograph manuscript. Stinson also considers various issues of performance practice, and provides the first comprehensive examination of the music's reception, its dissemination in manuscript and printed form, and its influence on such composers as Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms.

for women's chorus and piano. This cantata features sixteen highly-varied folk song settings, bound together in seasonal groupings to take the listener on an engaging journey through the year from Spring to Winter. The prologue implores us to 'sing and be merry', and many of the songs facilitate this with their charmingly light-hearted melodies and imaginative orchestral accompaniment. There are also darker moments, such as the haunting and heart-rending setting of 'The Unquiet Grave' in 'Autumn'. For this comprehensive new edition, the editor Graham Parlett has drawn on all available sources, providing an authoritative full score with critical commentary. This edition also makes available new materials for the version for string orchestra and piano, and a new vocal score.

Designed for both the practicing choral director and the choral methods student, this is a compact and comprehensive overview of the many teaching methods, strategies, materials, and assessments available for choral sight-singing instruction. Sight-singing is an important, if sometimes neglected, facet of choral music education that often inspires fear and uncertainty in student and teacher alike. Written in an accessible style, this book takes the mystery out of teaching music reading. Topics covered include the history of sight-singing pedagogy and research, prominent methods and materials, and practical strategies for teaching and assessment. This is the only book to provide such a wealth of information under one cover and will become an essential part of every choral conductor's library.

The practices of singing and teaching singing are inextricable, joined to each other through the necessity of understanding the vocal art and craft. Just as singers must understand the physical functions of voice in order to become musically proficient and artistically mature, teachers too need to have a similar mastery of these ideas - and the ability to explain them to their students - in order to effectively guide their musical and artistic growth. With this singer-instructor relationship in mind, Richard and Ann Alderson's A New Handbook for Singers and Teachers presents a fresh, detailed guide about how to sing and how to teach singing. It systematically explores all aspects of the vocal technique - respiration, phonation, resonance, and articulation - with each chapter containing exercises aimed at applying and teaching these principles. Beyond basic vocal anatomy and singing fundamentals, the handbook also covers such understudied topics as the young voice, the changing voice, and the aging voice, along with helpful chapters for teachers about how to organize vocal lessons and training plans. Thoughtfully and comprehensively crafted by two authors with decades of singing and teaching experience between them, A New Handbook for Singers and Teachers will prove an invaluable resource for singers and teachers at all stages of their vocal and pedagogical careers.

for SATB and organ, or orchestra and organ This invigorating arrangement of a well-loved hymn is the ideal choice for services and concerts throughout the year. Opening with a strong unison melody, each verse is presented in a new vocal scoring, underpinned by a vibrant organ accompaniment. Cleverly balancing full harmonies with accessible vocal lines, Mack Wilberg offers a truly uplifting anthem ideal for the amateur and professional choir alike. Orchestral material is available on hire (3 fl, 2ob, 2cl, 2bsn, 4hn, 3tpt, 3tbn, tba, timp, perc, org, str).

Born dirt-poor (his family had the dirt floor to prove it), Waylon Jennings took all the grit of his hometown of Littlefield, Texas, into his soul and his sound. From childhood, this son of a farm laborer considered nothing else but playing music. Stubborn enough never to lose sight of his goal, dumb enough not to realize how long and hard the road, he started as a country disc jockey in Lubbock, then signed on as a protege of fellow Texan Buddy Holly, missing the plane crash that claimed Holly's life by an accident of fate. Cut in the mode of Hank Williams and Carl Smith, yet determined to infuse conservative country music traditions with the energy of rock and roll, Waylon broke the closed society of Nashville sessions in the sixties. Under the tutelage of legends like Porter Wagoner and Ernest Tubb, he shared living quarters with Johnny Cash, took songwriting tips from Roger Miller and encouragement (often unsolicited) from Willie Nelson, and hung out after hours with Kris Kristofferson and George Jones. In the wake of country's own distinctive counterculture, when southern-fried acid freaks met - and partied with - diehard good ol' boys, Waylon helped give America something genuinely new. His 1976 anthology album, Wanted: The Outlaws, was a stunning platinum success, heralding a sound and a mood that evoked the country's pioneer spirit, a restlessness always pushing at the horizon and looking toward the next ridge. But while the artist and performer devoured life and rewrote the rules of the nation's popular music, the star binged on an endless stream of cocaine and pills and staggered through three failed marriages. Ultimately - and inspiringly - Waylon triumphed over his drughabit, proving he would fight for the right to sing his song. At the same time, he ended his long search for the right woman and married Jessi Colter, a country-singing great in her own right and now Waylon's wife for more than a quarter of a century. Today, two-time Grammy winner and sixteen-time chart-topper Waylon Jennings keeps the country fires raging, joining fellow superstars Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson on their sold-out international tours as the Highwaymen.

for solo violin, upper-voice choir (women's and/or advanced children's choir), with harp, and strings or organ This four-movement work is inspired by the idea of 'Jerusalem' both as a Holy City and a utopian ideal of heavenly peace and seraphic bliss. The composer has selected four biblical texts, in English and Latin, that express different aspects of this vision. This organ part is for use with the reduced instrumentation.

It is a truism in teaching choral conducting that the director should look like s/he wishes the choir to sound. The conductor's physical demeanour has a direct effect on how the choir sings, at a level that is largely unconscious and involuntary. It is also a matter of simple observation that different choral traditions exhibit not only different styles of vocal production and delivery, but also different gestural vocabularies which are shared not only between conductors within that tradition, but also with the singers. It is as possible to distinguish a gospel choir from a barbershop chorus or a cathedral choir by visual cues alone as it is simply by listening. But how can these forms of physical communication be explained? Do they belong to a pre-cultural realm of primate social bonding, or do they rely on the context and conventions of a particular choral culture? Is body language an inherent part of musical performance styles, or does it come afterwards, in response to music? At a practical level, to what extent can a practitioner from one tradition mandate an approach as 'good practice', and to what extent can another refuse it on the grounds that 'we don't do it that way'? This book explores these questions at both theoretical and practical levels. It examines textual and ethnographic sources, and draws on theories from critical musicology and nonverbal communication studies to analyse them. By comparing a variety of choral traditions, it investigates the extent to which the connections between conductor demeanour and choral sound operate at a general level, and in what ways they are constructed within a specific idiom. Its findings will be of interest both to those engaged in the study of music as a cultural practice, and to practitioners involved in a choral conducting context that increasingly demands fluency in a variety of styles.

for SATB and organ George Herbert's popular poem, 'The Call', is set to music in this powerful and evocative anthem. Bednall uses subtle dynamic and rhythmic shifts to build towards a powerful climax in the third verse, before winding down to a contemplative ending. The organ part plays a dramatic role and offers atmospheric interludes throughout.

for SATB and organ This setting of Psalm 139 by Chilcott is warm and mesmerizing. The chant-like texture and shifting tonalities impart the sensation of being entranced in prayer. The words offer respite, as one is safe in the omnipresence of God. Tranquil yet powerful, this work captures a sense of the total stillness after a storm. The sustained chords in the organ swell and fall, binding and supporting the choir's phrases while adding to the magical atmosphere of the anthem.

Michael Ewans explores how classical Greek tragedy and epic poetry have been appropriated in opera, through eight selected case studies. These range from Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, drawn from Homer's Odyssey, to Mark-Antony Turnage's Greek, based on Sophocles's Oedipus the King. Choices have been based on an understanding that the relationship between each of the operas and their Greek source texts raise significant issues, involving an examination of the process by which the librettist creates a new text for the opera, and the crucial insights into the nature of the drama that are bestowed by the composer's musical setting. Ewans examines the issues through a comparative analysis of significant divergences of plot, character and dramatic strategy between source text, libretto and opera.

for SATB and chamber ensemble Inspired by Geertgen's painting Nativity at Night, Candlelight Carol centres around the love of a mother on that first night in the stable. The orchestral material is compatible with both the SATBB and SSAA versions.

for SSATB and cello Night Flight was written to mark the centenary of Harriet Quimby's pioneering flight across the English channel. Setting texts by Sheila Bryer on the mysterious powers of the sea, earth, and air, McDowall uses vocal clusters and haunting solo cello lines to highlight the sense of fear, awe, and majesty experienced by an individual pitted against the elements. Cecilia McDowall was awarded the 2014 British Composer Award in the Choral category for Night Flight.

This directory is the most comprehensive index of music written for orchestra with chorus in print today. Offering performance information about choral works by more than 900 conductors, the more than 3,500 entries include such details as instrumentation, languages, timings, publishers, and composer information in an easy-to-follow reference style. Users can also browse categorized appendices of works, composers, and popular and original titles.

In 1714, the 29 year-old Johann Sebastian Bach was promoted to the position of concertmaster at the ducal court of Weimar. This post required him for the first time in his already established career to produce a regular stream of church cantatas-one cantata every four weeks. Among the most significant works of this period is Ich hatte viel Bekummernis in meinem Herzen (Cantata 21). Generally known in English as "I had much affliction," Cantata 21 draws from several psalms and the Book of Revelations and offers a depiction of the spiritual ascent of the soul from intense tribulation to joy and exaltation. Although widely performed and loved by musicians, Cantata 21 has endured much criticism from scholars and critics who claim that the piece lacks organizational clarity and stylistic coherence. In Tears into Wine, renowned Bach scholar Eric Chafe challenges the scholarly consensus, arguing that Cantata 21 is an exceptionally carefully designed work, and that it displays a convergence of musical structure and theological purpose that is paradigmatic of Bach's sacred work as a whole. Drawing on a wide range of Lutheran theological writing, Chafe shows that Cantata 21 reaches beyond the scope of the individual liturgical occasion to voice a breadth of meaning that encompasses much of the core of Lutheran thought. Chafe artfully demonstrates that instead of simply presenting a musical depiction of the soul's journey from sorrow to bliss, Cantata 21 expresses the various stages of God's revelation and their impact on the believing soul. As a result, Chafe reveals that Cantata 21 has a formal design that mirrors Lutheran belief in unfolding revelation, with the final movement representing the work's "crown"-the goal toward which all of the earlier movements are directed. Complete with full text translations of the cantata and the liturgical readings that would have accompanied it at the first performance, Tears into Wine is a monumental book that is ideally suited for Bach scholars and students, as well as those generally interested in the relationship between theology and music.

Classics of seventeenth-century Italian sacred music set in modern notation, this third part of Vesper and Compline Music for Multiple Choirs features works by Giacomo Giacobbi, Viriglio Mazzochi, Tarquinio Merula and Francesco Soriano.

Focus: Choral Music in Global Perspective introduces the little-known traditions and repertoires of the world's choral diversity, from prison choirs in Thailand and gay and lesbian choruses of the Western world to community choruses in the Middle East and youth choirs in the United States. The book weaves together the stories of diverse individuals and organizations, examining their music and pedagogical practices while presenting the author's research on how choral cultures around the world interact with societies and transform the lives of their members. Through an engaging series of portraits that pushes beyond the scope of extant texts and studies, the author explores the dynamic realm of world choral activity and repertoire. These personal portraits of musical communities are enriched by sample repertoire lists, performance details, and research findings that reposition a once Western phenomenon as a global concept. Focus: Choral Music in Global Perspective is an accessible, engaging, and provocative study of one of the world's most ubiquitous and socially significant forms of music-making.

Focus: Choral Music in Global Perspective introduces the little-known traditions and repertoires of the world's choral diversity, from prison choirs in Thailand and gay and lesbian choruses of the Western world to community choruses in the Middle East and youth choirs in the United States. The book weaves together the stories of diverse individuals and organizations, examining their music and pedagogical practices while presenting the author's research on how choral cultures around the world interact with societies and transform the lives of their members. Through an engaging series of portraits that pushes beyond the scope of extant texts and studies, the author explores the dynamic realm of world choral activity and repertoire. These personal portraits of musical communities are enriched by sample repertoire lists, performance details, and research findings that reposition a once Western phenomenon as a global concept. Focus: Choral Music in Global Perspective is an accessible, engaging, and provocative study of one of the world's most ubiquitous and socially significant forms of music-making.

In the late fifteenth century the newly built Sistine Chapel was home to a vigorous culture of musical composition and performance. Josquin des Prez stood at its center, singing and composing for the pope's private choir. Josquin's Rome offers a new reading of the composer's work in light of the repertory he and his fellow papal singers performed from the chapel's singers' box. Comprising the single largest surviving corpus of late fifteenth-century sacred music, these pieces served as a backdrop for elaborately choreographed liturgical ceremonies--a sonic analogue to the frescoes by Botticelli, Perugino, and their contemporaries that adorn the chapel's walls. Jesse Rodin uses a comparative approach to uncover this aesthetically and intellectually rich musical tradition. He confronts longstanding problems concerning the authenticity and chronology of Josquin's music while offering nuanced readings of scandalously understudied works by the composer's contemporaries. The book further contextualizes Josquin by locating intersections between his music and the wider soundscape of the Cappella Sistina. Central to Rodin's argument is the idea that these pieces lived in performance. The author puts his interpretations into practice through a series of exquisite recordings by his ensemble, Cut Circle (available both on the companion website and as a CD from Musique en Wallonie). Josquin's Rome is an essential resource for musicologists, scholars of the Italian Renaissance, and enthusiasts of early music.