2014-12

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Reworking a Christmas • Daniel Burges has been a choral singer since primary school. After entering the Kent Youth Choir in 1990, Daniel sang in several chamber and university choirs before moving to London in 1997 and joining the internationally-renowned Vasari Singers. As well as singing, he also composes choral music, including a new setting of the Coventry Carol, a well-loved traditional Christmas carol. We spoke to Dan to discover more about his work. Q: Why did you re-work the Coventry Carol? A: I was commissioned to write a new setting of the Coventry Carol by my good friend, Matthew Wood – a fellow singer and also, at the time, Director of Music at St Dunstan’s College in London. He had recently taken up the post, and the school had a good fully mixed-voice choir which he wanted to develop and introduce new repertoire to. Almost at the same time, I was approached by the music publisher Shorter House, which was looking to establish itself as a specialist in choral music publishing and release an anthology of newly-composed Christmas music entitled Sleep Holy Babe. The founder of Shorter House had sung some of my other works during his time as a choral scholar at St Martinin-the-Fields, and so he had the idea of approaching me to supply a new piece for the book. As I’d just started writing the Coventry Carol, this seemed a perfect opportunity! Q: Could you describe the piece? A: Coventry Carol is my humble reworking of the beautiful original traditional melody and words in a contemporary style. It uses fragments of the original melody and weaves this across all parts. Although the piece becomes quite dark in the middle section, to reflect the rage of King Herod, ultimately I wished the work to remain a lullaby and so not to ‘wake the baby’; the piece ends with a very gentle rocking motif, as if rocking a restless baby back to sleep. When writing it, I was very aware of wanting to make it accessible to a school choir, but at the same time, not fall into a trap of patronising younger singers by making it facile. It doesn’t shy away from some complex harmony, but the parts themselves are logical and do not have any extreme of vocal range. Q: Who has performed it since its premiere? A: It has been performed by several other choirs including the choir of St Martin-in-the-Fields and the professional choirs Blossom Street Singers and The Chappelle du Roi. It’s been broadcast on Radio 3 twice, and has also been recorded on CD by Blossom Street Singers on a disc called Sleep Holy Babe, which reached number nine in the Classical Music Charts a few Christmases ago! Q: Have you written any other Christmas music, or have you any ideas for some? A: I have recently completed St Chad’s Church, Linden Avenue, Woodseats Church Office: 9 Linden Avenue, Sheffield S8 0GA Tel: (0114) 274 5086 Page 8 email: office@stchads.org website: www.stchads.org
Classic an arrangement of the French carol ‘Il est ne le divin enfant’. Unlike the Coventry Carol setting, this takes a more subversive approach to the melody, with a lot of jazz-inspired harmony. It’s also much more complex, using eight parts, plus solos. It has yet to be performed! Mon/Fri 9am - <strong>12</strong> Tue/Wed 9am - 2:45 Fri <strong>12</strong> - 3pm The Abbey Public House We would like to welcome old and new customers back to the new Abbey. We now offer: Home cooked food, locally sourced A range of great real ales A welcoming & relaxing environment Come and try our excellent Sunday Roast with real roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings. With a variety of special events throughout the year, come and see what we have to offer! Call us: (0114) 274 5374 Email: info@theabbeysheffield.co.uk Facebook - The Abbey Public House The Abbey. 944 Chesterfield Road, Woodseats, S8 0SH St Chad’s Church, Linden Avenue, Woodseats Church Office: 9 Linden Avenue, Sheffield S8 0GA Tel: (0114) 274 5086 Page 9 email: office@stchads.org website: www.stchads.org
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2014-12

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