Tuesday, Sep 18, 2018
Two new recordings by the Westminster Choir and Joe Miller were released on the Westminster Choir College label and distributed by Naxos, on Friday, September 21.
Frank Martin: Mass for Double Choir
The centerpiece of Frank Martin: Mass for Double Choir is Swiss composer Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir, which he wrote between 1922 and 1926 and withheld from performance for nearly 40 years because he regarded it as an act of personal worship.
“I consider it to be one of the pinnacle a cappella works of the 20th century,” Westminster Choir conductor Joe Miller says about Martin’s Mass. “The score very much looks like a marriage between Bach and Debussy, or Bach and Ravel.”
The CD also includes the first recording of three contemporary choral works:
Anders Öhrwall’s arrangement of the beloved Swedish folk tune Fäbodpsalm från Dalarna, is distinguished by performances by David Kim, concertmaster for The Philadelphia Orchestra, soprano Sherezade Panthaki, an acknowledged star in the early music field, and Joseph Conyers, assistant principal bass for the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Lux Surgit Aurea (See the golden sun arise) was written by Catalan composer Bernat Vivancos for the Westminster Choir to perform at the 2017 World Symposium on Choral Music in Barcelona.
This is the first SATB recording of Westminster Professor Joel Phillips’ Little Lamb, a setting of the poem by William Blake.
Most of the works were recorded over three days at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Troy New York, legendary for its fine acoustic. Anders Öhrwall’s work was recorded in Verizon Hall at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center.
Follow this link to purchase on Amazon.com and iTunes or stream on Spotify or Apple Music. NOTE: There have been some issues with one track on Spotify, which should be resolved soon.
Peace Song
Also on September 21, the ensemble's recording of Assistant Professor Tim Brent's Peace Song (Beatitudes) was released digitally. It's available for streaming and download on most digital platforms. The score for Peace Song (Beatitudes) is available from GIA Publications' Music from Westminster series. You can preview it on iTunes here.