Newly In Print	Sound Clips. Where this icon appears next to a piece, click on it to hear a short sound clip of that piece. Clips are MP3 format, and can be heard in many players, including Microsoft Media Player. If you don't have it, get it free here.
Getting ready for "Living In A Holy City" with over five hundred voices: the combined Hopewell Valley H.S. and Timberlane Middle School choirs of New Jersey, directed by Ken and Rebecca Elpus. See bottom of page for an action shot.  Photo by Mike Schwartz, www.mssphoto.com
	A final rehearsal in a suprisingly chilly hall for 'Best To Be Singing In Difficult Times', Pictou County, Nova Scotia. Photo by Alex Keir.
Best To Be Singing In Difficult Times SATB, piano and percussion (optional accordion, fiddle and/or flute)  979-0-051-47922-1 Recording Available Juvenata! 2008	Like "All Too Soon" this piece was written for "Juvenata", a wonderful festival in Nova Scotia hosted by the Pictou District Honour Choir, and both pieces rose from messages sent by the choir in which they discussed the large and small concerns of their lives. From the many letters that talked of disruptions in the family circle and the seasonal cycle came the title, "Best To Be Singing In Difficult TImes" and the desire to write a song that would stare the difficulties in the face with determination, not despair. As the song says, "It gets confusing. It makes you wonder what we're losing, and what's already gone." I open with a melody by De Lassus, set to my own ground, in which music is presented as "Dei donum optimi" - God's greatest gift. I then swing the De Lassus melody into the triple time of a slip jig, creating melodic and rhythmic variations on the original while preserving its canonic nature, so that part of this piece becomes a round between the men and women. A good percussionist is crucial, either on the celtic frame drum the bodhrán (which is the ideal), or on a floor tom, whose rim clicks make a good imitation of the bodhrán click. The piano part comes with instructions as to how it can be adapted for accordion, fiddle and/or flute. If you are able to form a "kitchen party band" with these instruments, I'd usually leave the piano out. top
Christmas Day (How Long The Night Can Last) unison and piano  979-0-051-47890-3 Recording Available Dale/Chafe	Written for my friends David Chafe and Andrew Dale, this piece is meant to be simple enough for young singers and subtle enough for the most advanced. I love paradoxes, and this song portrays a Christmas Eve that could be tranquil, or tormented, or both. The torment is deliberately understated so that choirs can portray a mood of gentle Christmas comfort without any dark edge. For those who find the dark edge throws the light into higher relief, you'll know what I'm after. Although first written for a soloist, the melody is well suited to how a unison choir shapes a phrase. top
Members of the Hamilton Children’s Choir rehearse the handbells for 'Creation'. (You actually need five bell-ringers for the piece -- we had one down with the flu during this rehearsal.) For shots of the whole choir at work on the piece, see the bottom of the compositions page for Mixed Voices, SAB.
Creation SSAA and handbells (additional parts for "guests" and audience)  979-0-051-47918-4 Recording Available Hamilton Children's Choir: Days 1-4  Hamilton Children's Choir: Days 5-7  Songbridge Premiere	Written for Songbridge 2008 for the Hamilton Children's Choir and given a double premiere in Poland and Germany, "Creation" uses handbells and treble voices to create a dialogue between eternal and mortal voices. The Hamilton Children's Choir, led by Zimfira Poloz, drew the bellringers from their own ranks and had the ringers sing as well - a beautiful effect, if you are able to do likewise. The piece, inspired by the creation as it appears in Genesis, is in seven short movements that parallel the seven days. Each day ends with a short prayer of thanksgiving in which the audience joins. As with all Songbridge pieces there is a simple part for a "guest" choir, as well as for the audience. The piece combines atonal and tonal writing, with much flexibility in terms of how the piece is mounted. The Hamilton Children's Choir used movement and blocking to turn their presentation into a masque, with the guest singers standing above and around them on the choral risers, but the piece also works without choreography. If you are using your own musicians on the bells, you will save a lot of time and trouble and pick up a lot of valuable insider techniques if you get an experienced player to do some coaching. Although listed as SSAA the choir spends much of its time in unison to three part texture, as well as some atonal sections where every singer acts as an individual voice. top
Drumbeat and Willowsong (Pukjantan Yangryu Ga) High Voice / Low Voice (with a dozen measures of divisi), flute, drum  979-0-051-47943-6 (Individual parts for flute and drum) 979-0-051-10576-2 Recording Available Cantabile  Nove Voce	Although originally written for the Cantabile Young Men's Chorus of Kingston, Ontario, this suite of South and North Korean folk songs can be sung by any combination of singers in a two-part texture of high voice and low voice. I have always been attracted to a mixture of sorrow and joy, and Korean folk music brings these two opposites together in a particularly striking way. The suite unfolds as a quest for both romantic and patriotic love as the beauties of landscape intertwine with the beauties of the fantasy lover. The singers find themselves in fishing boats, rounding a noble cape to the sound of drums; or climbing the passes of high mountains to the sound of rushing rivers; or hypnotized by the perfume of flowers and the scent of the beloved, to the sound of honey-drunk bees and birds. The use of a single drum (options for what kind of drum are discussed in the score) is in tribute to Korean p'ansori, one of my favourite forms of vocal music, while the use of the flute pays tribute to how in this culture the flute can suggest the languor of love, the vigour of adventure, and the undulating line of a landscape. The suite, which is sung in Korean, comes with detailed notes on pronouncing the language (the IPA transcription is much more straightforward than you'd think) as well as lots of background on the songs and their cultural context. More research and scholarship went into this suite than anything else I have published. My thanks to my Korean coach Lee Sunghwa, whose name means "a star in harmony and balance", and who brought both of these qualities to our discussions. The soundfile is taken from a section of the suite that shows the sudden tempo changes common in Korean music. Note that individual parts for the flute and drum can be ordered from Boosey. These parts are incorporated into the vocal score, but in that format they will not be convenient for the flautist and drummer to use in performance. top
The tribes of Earth, Ocean, Sky and Fire declare war on each other in this partial dress rehearsal of 'Flying Colours' with Phoebe Voigts and the Saskatoon Children's Choir. One of the most productive, creative and efficient rehearsals of my life. Photos by Ron Berntson. Video: Selections from the masque
Flying Colours any combination of voices with percussion and optional piano  979-0-051-47923-8	This is a masque of about twenty minutes in length, in which the story is told through ritualized movement and costume as well as through music. The video file shows footage from the beautifully realized premiere performance by the Saskatoon Children's Choir led by Phoebe Voigts. (The piece, a three-way commission, was also written for Joe Ohrt and his Central Bucks High School-West Chamber Choir, and Eric Wilkinson and the Sumpter High School Choir.) "Flying Colours" is a parable of suspicion and conflict. Four tribes, each with their own standards of costume and custom, concentrate so much on each other's differences that they miss how their four tribal chants create a lovely texture when sung simultaneously. Tensions mount amidst escalating skirmishes and broken treaties until there is war, destruction, an afterlife of haunted grief, and a closing section that suggests both how we never learn, and yet at the same time how we must. Whether the masque closes in an atmosphere of sunset or sunrise is up to the group, as are many other creative details of costuming and choreography. My text, thanks to the suggestion of Phoebe Voigts, is in "Amadeus language" - nonsense syllables out of which each tribe constructs its own speech. This has the side benefit that in the war sections where everything is fast and loud, the audience doesn't have to keep track of actual words. Percussion instruments (kalimbas, drums, rainsticks, cowbells, vibraslaps and finger cymbals) are distributed amongst the tribes as marks of status and honour as well as the instruments that keep the masque moving forward. The performance notes give details as to which parts are the most advanced and how the instruments are to be distributed. At the premiere, the Saskatoon Children's Choir had the kalimba parts softly doubled by a piano, which sounded very well as the piano's greater sustain helped the kalimba parts carry, which helped the singers keep in tune. Images captured from the DVD of Flying Colours. top
The Bell' Arte Singers in a final rehearsal with founding director Lee Willingham. 'From The Lee Shore' was written in honour of their last concert together. The choir also commissioned 'Hard Shoulder', one of my best pieces.
From the Lee Shore  979-0-051-47908-5 Bell' Arte Singers	Lee Willingham has conducted Toronto's Bell' Arte singers for twenty years, and this piece was sung by the choir as a surprise farewell at his final concert. The title puns on his name, but the true meaning of the title is that since the wind blows towards a lee shore, when we say farewell we must push away from a shore that doesn't want us to leave and sail into the wind. The piece, which combines rich chords, plainsong and polyphony, bears no textual reference to anyone, and becomes a farewell to a way of life or a way of thought as much as to a person. The piece is calm and reflective, but also celebratory, especially of the choral musician's life. As the Latin plainsong in the middle of the piece proclaims, "In the beginning, God created sound." top
Members of Les Ms. moments before showtime at Podium 2008. See the bottom of the SSAA compositions page for a full shot of the choir Melanie DeMore called 'The Estrogen Festival'.
Giver Should Be Grateful, The  AMP 0773 (Alliance) Recording Available Nove Voce/Tapestry	WARNING: The first edition of the printed score jumps from measure 10 to 20. If you have that edition, contact me through this website and I will send you the missing measures. This piece was commissioned by Podium 2008, the national convention of Canadian choral directors, and reflects the concerns of choral directors everywhere: the spiritual and cultural importance of singing, the effort required of those who support and enable the tradition, how thankless their efforts often are, and how the best thanks and praise come from within, from our own realization that we have fought the good fight. Premiered by the joint forces of the Fredericton Youth Orchestra and the Fredericton School Girls' Choir, the song makes its point through telling a story. Here is the opening and the closing of the tale. "Once on a distant night, a temple in Japan caught fire (it burned so bright). No place to pray 'til a rich businessman came forward with a trunk so full of money, rebuilding right away could start. But not a 'thank you' from the temple came. It couldn’t help but grate his heart." "So all you pilgrims here, what are you marching for? What makes you, year by year, give what you can and then give some more? Is there a temple burning deep inside you, rebuilding every time it falls apart? Well, our creator was the first to know the giver has a grateful heart." The quiet mischief in the piano part underlines the humour as well as the gentle passion in the narrative, while the choir’s role as storyteller gives them plenty of opportunity to explore the finesse of phrasing and rhythm required to make a tale come alive. A good piece for creating an unusual atmosphere – a kind of quirky serenity - without requiring a host of unusual techniques from the singers. top
	Cantus Vocum, the wide-ranging and well-traveled chamber choir from St. John’s, led by Chad Stride, who commissioned 'Heaven To Earth' and 'The Jolly Roving Tar.'
Heaven To Earth SATB with divisi  979-0-051-47909-2 Cantus Vocam	Chad Stride, founder of the St. John's chamber choir Cantus Vocum, asked me for a piece in which somebody reconnects with a lost faith at Christmas. Well then, in St. John's, which may just have the foggiest, most turbulence-bedevilled airport on earth, it becomes a matter of faith whether or not your plane is ever going to land, especially at Christmas Eve. Anyone who has lived in St. John's has their own stories of white-knuckle flights where all sorts of bargains are made with God as the plane is tossed about the stormy skies like a matchbook in a hurricane. This song, which combines elements of folk music, blues, crazy chords and gentle lullaby, follows the thought processes of a frightened passenger as the text develops into a multi-levelled Christmas Eve prayer for airplane and redeemer to both "come down". The soundfile is from a Christmas Eve performance in the home of Chad Stride himself. top
	The night sky at Hradec Králové, homebase during the Prague recording sessions for 'In Europam Natus Est'.
In Europam Natus Est (SATB) Order through this website (TTBB) Order through this website Recording Available Gentlemen Singers  Gentlemen Singers	Written for the Gentlemen Singers of the Czech Republic, “In Europam Natus Est” (“He Is Born In Europe”) is an a cappella suite, about twenty three minutes in length, that brings together Christmas carols, liturgical chants and quotes from Chesnokov and Handel (plus some secret handshakes with Beethoven and Rachmaninoff) to form a mosaic of melodies first heard in Spain, Catalonia, Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Burgundy, Provence, Sicily, Italy, Austria, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Finland, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Russia, Hungary, Romania and – as the suite moves from the edge of one continent, one time frame to another – Byzantium. Christmas medleys can be difficult: how do you keep such a frequently visited genre fresh? How do you avoid the predictable, episodic sense of, “Here’s a melody, and here’s the next one, and the next, and now we can tell we’re gearing up for a little change of mood owing to the completely obvious signals in the music….” But at the same time, a Christmas suite is not the time to get too iconoclastic, too clever-by-half. That’s not the right social contract with your audience. With my suite I have created a narrative that starts with Latin chant for Christmas and ends with a Byzantine chant for Easter; and by frequently dividing the choir into a double choir, I am able to create an underlying antiphonal structure that gives form to the rapid interchange and intertwining of melodies as carols are compared on the basis of their theme, melody, or rhythm. The two excerpts from the suite included on this website take you from the opening Latin chant into the first antiphonal exchanges between the double choir, and then move towards the middle of the suite where the carols alternate more slowly, receiving more thorough development before we careen back into the 2nd set of antiphonal exchanges that start the second half of the piece. Some of these carols are world famous. Some are rarely heard outside their own land. Publishers are frightened of an a cappella piece that lasts this long, but there are places where one can pause and retune if one needs to, which the Gentlemen Singers have done on occasion, especially in early performances. The suite is intended to work whether or not the audience has translations of the texts. The piece is especially suitable for chamber choirs of at least eight voices. My thanks to the following people for their help with the many languages that appear in this suite: Taylor Adams, Marcos Carreras, Jussi Chydenius, Ivars Cinkus, Dr. Florin Diacu, Rudy Heijdens, Joanna Kazik, Stijn Kolacny, Lukáš Merkl, Eva Mezo, Jean-Claude Minet, Zimfira Poloz, Martin Ptáček, Elfie Schau, and in particular Dr. Deborah Hatfield Moore. top
The piano scatters the first raindrops, and the ladies reach for their shawls. Kokapelli of of Edmonton, Alberta unleashes the premier of 'Koka' at Podium 2008 in Sackville, New Brunswick.
Koka SSAA or SATB and piano, four hands (SSAA) 979-0-051-47910-8 (SATB) 979-0-051-47911-5 Recording Available Juvenata! 2008  Hopewell	Written for Kokopelli of Edmonton, Alberta, because I knew they would turn the piece into their own miniature Bollywood spectacular. This old Punjabi song also works without choreography, but it won't work without two good pianists at the four-hand piano, where precise rhythmic control is crucial. The song finds our hero and heroine in India's rainy season, trapped by a sudden downpour. Ths gives our heroine the perfect opportunity to use all her powers of persuasion to get her man to buy her a "koka", or a "nose ring", to honour her youth and her beautiful complexion. For most western choirs it will take a while to get used to singing in Punjabi, but oh boy is it worth it! The piece is advanced, not because of crazy tuning, but because I have tried to keep the Punjabi vocal ornaments, traditionally sung by a soloist, in place in the choral texture. The song is in straightforward 4/4 time, but rhythmic challenges abound nonetheless as the voices imitate the flexibility of an Indian flute and the four-hand piano imitates the shimmering, virtuoso licks of an entire Indian dance band. My arrangement is not only a tribute to Kokopelli, but to musicians Kiran Ahluwalia and Kiran Thakrar. top
Andrew Dunsmore sings and plays 'Metal and Wood', a piece for solo voice and percussion he commissioned as part of his research into the value of choral training for instrumentalists. The audio clip gives five minutes from the piece, starting when Andrew moves from chant to song by means of the 'A' from a silver tuning fork. ('Make the metal give its note away.') Dunsmore
¡Sigale! (Test Your Gold) SAB and piano, optional percussion  979-0-051-47912-2 Kingswood-Oxford	A latin-dance mixture of English and Spanish written for the Phoenix Middle School Choir of Delavan, Wisconsin, whose members made sure the Spanish sounded like the way they talked. Pianists comfortable with the style can customize the piano part; there's plenty of room for latin percussion and a string bass sounds great doubling the piano left hand. Since the school is named for the phoenix I thought it appropriate to center the text around images of fire - the fire of destruction, of purification, the fire of hot music and a glowing spirit. Manageable by a good middle school group, but with plenty to offer an advanced ensemble, this piece aims for an atmosphere of uplift and inspiration without forgetting the false passions and fool's gold that can make the search for inspiration so difficult and sad. As the piece points out, choir is one of the most positive community experiences a young person can have during the search for inspiration, so this piece is suitable for assemblies or concerts that consider the emotional and psychological health of choral singing. The soundfile is from an in-class rehearsal with part of the Kingswood-Oxford middle school choir. Soon the rehearsal soundfile will be replaced by a live performance that conductor Marcos Carreras assures me will be sweet indeed. Thanks to Phoenix, the commissioning body, for their own recording of the piece, which had fuzzy sound, alas, but also had the heart firmly in the right place. top
You’re History (Stop At Nothing) SSATB and percussion  979-0-051-47942-9	Commissioned by the Chicago Children's Choir in the final stages of the 2008 American Presidential Campaign, the title of the song reflects the sense of "history being made around us" that was so strong during this time, especially when you consider that, for various reasons, the election of Obama, Clinton or McCain would all have been epochal events. Bearing in mind that the Chicago Children's Choir grew out of the epochal event of the American Civil Rights movement, my piece alludes in a non-partisan way to the struggles for political change in the outside world, and the struggles for personal change in the internal world, both struggles coming together in a phrase that alludes to the famous quest in Tolkien: "not everyone who wanders is lost". The title takes a put-down (You're outta here – you're history) and turns it into an affirmation. The style alternates between a slow-burning gospel anthem, set to the slow drums of a state procession, and a syncopated dance-anthem, influenced by the rhythms of classic reggae. Singers and percussionists alike get to sink deep into a style and then turn on a dime. "Sometimes I'd much rather run than fight. Sometimes my faith gets crossed. Sometimes my feet don't know left from right. Not everyone who wanders is lost." top
"Living In A Holy City" with over five hundred voices: the combined Hopewell Valley H.S. and Timberlane Middle School choirs of New Jersey, directed by Ken and Rebecca Elpus. Accompanist Elizabeth Hartnett can be seen sitting at the piano, singing along in her head. Photo by Matt Schwartz, www.mssphoto.com