I’ve been very pleased over the past few months to see a steady trickle of new subscribers to this blog, with very few unsubscribes. All this in spite of the fact that I haven’t written much new here for awhile. This gap isn’t at all because I’m losing interest; it’s just that most of my material stems from concerts that my beloved community choir, the Cherry Creek Chorale, is in process of rehearsing. Because I didn’t sing in the May concert I sort of lost that connection. But now I’m back, and looking forward very much to our 2024-25 season. You’ll be seeing lots of material about that concert in upcoming posts, with a multi-part post on the biggie we’re performing in October, Mozart’s Coronation Mass. I can hardly wait!
But for June and July I want to include posts about new compositions from three current composers: Elaine Hagenberg, Dan Forrest, and Eric Whitacre. One of the great privileges of writing this blog is that I’m motivated to keep in touch with what’s going on in contemporary classical choral music, and at times I’ve been privileged to correspond with several of these artists who’ve been gracious enough to respond to my requests for information. The ones listed here have all come out with new pieces within the past months, so I plan to write about each starting next week. I don’t have any official connection with any of them; all of the material I write is independently produced, and since I concentrate on the texts I usually don’t have to get permission to quote them since they’re in the public domain.
Just to demonstrate my familiarity with these composers, here are previous posts I’ve written about each:
Dan Forrest:
I’ve written quite a bit about Forrest, with two multi-part posts about major works:
“LUX: The Dawn From on High“–an extensive study of Forrest’s major 2017 work, with an introductory section about the composer’s career and the background of the work.
“Dan Forrest Breathes Life into ‘the breath of life‘”–an examination of Forrest’s 2019 work that became emblematic in 2020 of the COVID epidemic and the death of George Floyd.
His works are examined or mentioned in the following posts:
“What’s a ‘herald angel’? And other questions answered about a confusing Christmas carol”
“Is ‘Joy to the World’ a Christmas song?”
“Was the Singing of the Angels on Christmas Night ‘Soft,’ ‘Sweet’ or ‘Faint’?”
“How has the Jewish Bible Book of Ecclesiastes Been Used in Musical Settings?”
“Was There Really Any Winter’s Snow at the Time of the Nativity in Bethlehem?”
“‘Oread Farewell’ and its Many Meanings”
“Should Dan Forrest’s Three Nocturnes Inspire Us to Look Up at the Stars?”
Elaine Hagenberg has been a great source of music for my choir, especially with our participation in the original composition consortium of her now incredibly popular longer work Illuminare, for which she worked with us in person:
“An Illuminating New Work: Elaine Hagenberg’s ‘Illuminare‘”
Here are other works I’ve examined:
“A Timeless Text Set by a Timely Composer: Elaine Hagenberg’s ‘Alleluia‘”
“How an Obscure Shaker Hymn Gave Elaine Hagenberg Her Start”
“A Mysterious Text with Three Beautiful Settings and a Bonus: ‘Gaelic Blessing/Deep Peace’”
“Two Hagenberg Hits“–includes discussion of “By Night” and “You Do Not Walk Alone”
And, finally, the Whitacre pieces we’ve sung:
“The Story Behind the Whitacre/Plitmann ‘Five Hebrew Love Songs‘”–so beautiful, so almost unbearably poignant!
“The Story of Eric Whitacre’s ‘Sleep’”
“Eric Whitacre’s Sweet Seal Lullaby”
“Who Are the Two Heavy Hitters Involved in the Light, Shimmering Piece ‘A Boy and a Girl’?”
Take a look at what interests you, and come back next week for a post on the new Hagenberg piece “Swifter than Flame.”
©Debi Simons
