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 The choir mainly performs the major sacred
and secular choral works, normally in church with organ, but increasingly with
string or orchestral accompaniment. For example:
- Verdi, Requiem
- Handel, Messiah
- Elgar, The Dream of Gerontius
- Elgar, The Music Makers
- Mendelssohn, Elijah
- Mozart, Requiem
The repertoire includes shorter works such as:
- Palestrina, Stabat Mater
- Vivaldi, Gloria
- Bernstein, Chichester Psalms
- Monteverdi, Beatus Vir
- Britten, St Nicholas
- Brahms, Liebeslieder Waltzes
about the composer
message from the composer
This work is a carol sequence for mixed voices and organ. It
was composed by David Francis Urrows, for the choir in 1998.
The sequence comprises:
Nova gaudia
verses: anon, 12th century,
sound clip
(242 KB) The Angel Gabriel
(verses: Rev Sabine Baring-Gould 1834 -1924)
Omnis mundus
iucundetur
(verses: Anna von Köln (ca 1480 - 1530)
Sinfonia
(organ
solo)
The Yeoman's Carol
(verses from a church gallery tune book, noted by the rev L J T
Darwell)
Verbum patris
humanatur
(verses: anon, 12th century)
For lo, the days are
hastening on
verses: Edmund H Sears, 1810 - 1876;
sound
clip
(343 KB)
 About the Composer
David Francis Urrows was born in Hawai'i in 1957. He was
educated at Brandeis University, the University of Edinburgh, and Boston
University, from which he received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in
1987. His principal teachers included the composers Randall Thompson and
Kenneth Leighton.
Urrows has taught composition and music
history at the University of Massachusetts, Hong Kong Baptist
University, and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. He is presently Assistant Professor
and Assistant Chairman of the Department of Music at Eastern
Mediterranean University in Famagusta, North Cyprus. His vocal and
choral music is published by Boosey & Hawkes and Paraclete Press.
Message from the
Composer
'My message to the choir is, to enjoy singing this work, despite
all the difficulties with rhythms, etc. I assembled the text from a
collection of poems and such which I had made over the years: when I
settled on a Christmas work, I looked through a lot of cuttings and
jottings, and suddenly there they all were, just requiring a little
ordering to make sense. Rather like the statue present in the marble
before the sculptor starts to chip away to reveal it. After that, the
piece wrote itself, so it was very enjoyable to write. So I hope that
feeling is somehow communicated in the music.'
David Urrows, North Cyprus, November 2000
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