Much of the music sung by choirs and choral societies is – naturally enough – sacred in character, so we thought it would be interesting to take a look at secular choral music this spring.
American composer Ann Callaway is busily writing a choral work based on Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem, “Henry Purcell”. Its world première is in May 2015. Ann told Jaime Robles about the difficulties in writing for voices and how she attempts to overcome them.
Erica Miner explores Vaughan Williams’ sublime Serenade to Music, which is based on text from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.
Continuing our 2015 focus on anniversary composers Nielsen and Sibelius, Aksel Tollåli explores their choral music – little known outside Denmark and Finland, but well worth hearing.