Monthly Archives: December 2013

Brave new world

The Cecilian Choir has always been something of a playground for experimenting with contemporary choral music, and this term we’ve been finding our feet with a selection of modern pieces that really challenges us.

Ubi caritas, in a setting by Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo, is full of exotic harmonies, still retaining something of its original plainchant ancestry at the start before blossoming into luminous colours as the piece begins to unfold;

 

Alongside this, the Choir is drawing out the rich dissonances in Latvian composer Arturs Maskat’s Lugums Naktij (Prayer to the Night); additionally, we’ve recently begun working on Indian Prayer at Evening, the third of ‘Three Native American Songs’ by the young British composer, Toby Nelms, with swinging, prairie-filled open-fifths and a suitably dusky tonal palette. We started our contemporary odyssey with the Hymn to the Dormition of the Mother of God by the late Sir John Tavener back in October, which will add an element of tribute to the choir’s concert in April.

This choir excels at picking up new music, and for next term I’ve lined up some pieces by Howard Skempton as well. The backbone of the programme is something rather less modern – movements from Hassler’s Missa super Dixit Maria, written somewhat earlier in 1599, and a piece I’ve wanted to do for a long while; the intention is to weave the contemporary pieces amongst the movements of the mass.

Before then, the Choir will be performing a clutch of carols at next Wednesday’s end of term, festive ‘Watch This Space’ event on the foyer-stage. But it’s in the contemporary music that the choir is particularly strong; next term’s concert will be a treat.

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Carol Service at the Cathedral

As I drove a few of the Chamber Choir back to campus last night, after the Chamber Choir had sung in the annual University Carol Service in Canterbury Cathedral, we were all reflecting on how fortunate we are to be involved with such an astonishing space. The University holds its annual degree ceremonies for its Canterbury students there, and as well as the carol service, we also hold the yearly Colyer-Fergusson concert each spring in the vast Cathedral Nave; the Chamber Choir also performs each spring in the Cathedral Crypt.

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Waiting at the West Doors to start the service

Last night’s Carol Service was the traditional celebration of the season, with carols, readings and reflections on the message of togetherness and reconciliation. As the Cathedral lights slowly went out at the start of the service, we were gathered at the West Doors clutching our lit candles; a moment, and then Matt began the service with Ord’s Adam Lay Y-Bounden, launched briskly into the vaulted heights. The congregation then stood, and soprano Emma’s clear soprano rang out over the assembly with the opening solo verse of Once in Royal, and we were underway.

The most challenging aspect of the rehearsal earlier in the afternoon had not been the musical content of the service, but how we should arrange ourselves in formation and process down the Nave in order to arrive on the altar-steps by the end of Once in Royal. Plus the consideration of in which hand to hold the candle, how fast we should leg it (er, I mean, process in dignified fashion!) during the carol in order to be in place by the last verse, and how not set light to our copies or the hair of the person in front. (”I’ve doused my hair in vast amounts of hairspray,” wailed Livy in the altos – ”I knew it was a mistake!”) Thankfully, there were no conflagrations, although we did make it into place on the altar steps with scant lines to spare…

On the altar-steps

On the altar-steps

As the service unfolded in words and music, there was the customary minefield that is singing Silent Night in a multitude of languages, a celebration of the University’s international community; Marek, one of the tenors, is Polish and was able to deliver the Polish verse with aplomb; alto Charley had diligently been working on the Japanese verse with one of her flat-mates; the rest of us grappled heroically with trying to fit the syllables of other languages to the well-known tune with mixed results. We stood to sing the evocative Gabriel’s Message and, later, a rousing account of Deck The Hall. At the end, all the congregation candles were re-lit for the final prayers, proclamations and hymn – the Nave became a sea of small flames dancing intimately to O Come, All Ye Faithful, before they were carried out of the Cathedral into the Close and beyond, out into the city.

Warming up in the North aisle before the service

Warming up in the North aisle before the service

A wonderful occasion to which everyone looks forward from the moment we meet for our first rehearsal each October; an opportunity to sing in one of the world’s greatest cathedrals, and to celebrate the season with music, with friends and with the University community.

Merry Christmas.

Troll the ancient Christmas carol

And so, the Chamber Choir’s first public concert has suddenly come and gone. After all the preparation, the eager anticipation and excitement, the Advent sequence evaporated in a whiff of Christmas spice.

With the first unfolding of the Advent antiphon into the church of St Damian and St Cosmus at Blean, we well and truly ushered in the season of Advent. Carols, readings, poems, ancient plainsong – all combined to bring about a time to contemplate different aspects of this period of the year. Because, after all, that’s what concerts do; they create a defined moment out of the humdrum of normal routine, away from the daily concerns of life, and offer a chance to experience time-out-of-time. For a brief moment, time is governed not by the remorseless ticking of the clock or by timetables, schedules and commitments; instead, time is dictated by the crotchet pulse of a carol, or the lithe agility of a piece of plainchant, or in the measured metre of a piece of poetry.

After the concert, there was a definite sense of achievement, of pride in what we’d achieved; it’s a big step between all the rehearsal preparation to delivery in performance, and nothing can quite prepare an ensemble for that crucible of performing in public. Our next commitment is in Canterbury Cathedral on Monday, for the University Carol Service, towards which we are all looking forward.

Advent is here.

Pictures by Matt Wilson:© University of Kent