Great composition and exquisitely performed

Always interesting to hear settings of texts you've set! https://soundcloud.com/david-ridley/everyone-sang

I did this with my chamber choir and we absolutely killed it! But hearing this, I LOVE IT!!!!!

Live recording from our inaugural performance, "Reflections," in June, 2013. Featuring Melissa Dunphy's "Together" conducted by Brandon Elliott.

"Together" by Melissa Dunphy [Live]

Live recording from our inaugural performance, "Reflections," in June, 2013. Featuring Debra Scroggins' serene "A Dream Within a Dream" conducted by Brandon Elliott.

"A Dream Within A Dream" by Debra Scroggins [Live]

"I am Music" by composer Dale Trumbore, commissioned by Brandon Elliott and Choral Arts Initiative.  World premiere performance on July 19, 2014 in Newport Beach, CA during the Summer 2014 Performance: Reconciliation.  

Text:

I tell the story of love, the story of hate,  the story that saves, and damns.   
I am the incense upon which  prayers float to heaven.  
I am the smoke which palls over the field  of battle where men lie dying   with me on their lips.

I am close to the marriage altar,  and when the graves open, I stand nearby.   
I call the wanderer home,  I rescue the soul from the depths.  
I open the lips of lovers  and through me the dead whisper to the living.

I speak through the birds of the air,  the insects of the field,  
the crash of the waters on rock-ribbed shores,  the sighing of wind in the trees,  and I am even heard 
by the soul that knows me  in the clatter of wheels on city streets.

Through me spirits immortal speak  the message that makes the world weep,   and laugh, and wonder, and worship.

I know my brother, yet all men are my brothers;   
I am of them and they are of me,  for I am the instrument of God.
I am music.

-Anonymous 

"I am Music" [Live]

The West Coast Premiere of "Armistice 1918: Everyone Sang" by composer Craig Carnahan.  Live recording performed by Choral Arts Initiative on July 19, 2014 for the Summer 2014 Performance: Reconciliation.  Conducted by Brandon Elliott.  

Text: 

EVERYONE suddenly burst out singing;	 
And I was filled with such delight	 
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,	 
Winging wildly across the white	 
Orchards and dark-green fields; on—on—and out of sight.	         
  
Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted;	 
And beauty came like the setting sun:	 
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror	 
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone	 
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

"Armistice 1918: Everyone Sang" [Live]

West coast premiere of "Neither Angels, Nor Demons, Nor Powers" by Timothy Takach.  A live recording from Choral Arts Initiative's Summer 2014 Performance: Reconciliation.  Directed by Brandon Elliott.  

"Neither Angels, Nor Demons, Nor Powers" [Live]

Live recording of "A Procession Winding Around Me" IV: "Reconciliation" by Jeffrey Van with Mr. Van himself accompanying on guitar.   Performed in July 2014 by the Choral Arts Initiative.  Brandon Elliott, Artistic Director.  

[This recording suffers from atmospheric "cracks" caused by the church rafters.  Please excuse the noise and enjoy the music.]

Text:

WORD over all, beautiful as the sky!	 
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;	 
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil’d world:	 
... For my enemy is dead—a man divine as myself is dead;	 
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin—I draw near
I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

IV: "Reconciliation" from A PROCESSION WINDING AROUND ME [Live]

I think of Lodestar as a sort of fable for adults. Diane Thiel's text for the piece, from her poem Nursery Shellgame, describes life in the language of fairy tales and children's stories: "a trail of crumbs," "a handful of blue marbles," "how you wonder what you are."

There's darkness here, too: "years spent / following the tracks of other things / that would chew off limbs / to free themselves, knowing / they would never grow back." 

The last line of Thiel's poem, though, was what persuaded me that I absolutely had to set this poem to music: "Make sure you take a ship with you. Make sure you do. Even a swimmer as strong as you / needs a ship sometimes—even you."

I love the lyricism of the writing here, but more than that, this line offers such a quiet reassurance. Life is no fairy tale, and there is no correct path to follow; maybe we're not even as strong as we think we may be. Knowing this, though, we can still look out for ourselves; whatever our "ship" is, when we remember to rely on it, it will be there for us.

This performance of Lodestar features Choral Arts Initiative (Brandon Elliott, director) and soloist Chelsea Lyons and was recorded on July 18, 2015.

Lodestar

Live recording from our April 3, 2016 performance, "Such Things As Flowers."  Featuring the west coast premiere of "As Is The Sea Marvelous", a PREMIERE|Project submission, by Matthew Hazzard.  Tenor soloist, Sammy Salvador.

[Live] "As Is The Sea Marvelous" by Matthew Hazzard

"Nyon Nyon" by Jake Runestad. Performed by VocalEssence, Philip Brunelle, conductor, at the 2012 Chorus America National Conference at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. Recording from the live stream on Minnesota Public Radio.

Purchase scores at:  http://jakerunestad.com/store

Nyon Nyon is an exploration of the effects that one can produce with the human voice. I created original words to achieve varieties of colors and mixed and matched them within the ensemble to produce a diverse sonic landscape. Incorporating effects similar to a flanger, wah-wah pedal, drum and bass, and synthesizers turns the choir into a full-fledged vocal orchestra.

Nyon Nyon - (SATB Choir)

"Central Park at Dusk" is the Manhattan movement of 'Five Boroughs, One City' for unaccompanied choir, and was premiered by the Manhattan Choral Ensemble at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in Manhattan.

Performed by the Manhattan Choral Ensemble.

Copyright ©2013 by Justin Giarrusso. All Rights Reserved.

CENTRAL PARK AT DUSK (1911)

Buildings above the leafless trees
Loom high as castles in a dream,
While one by one the lamps come out
To thread the twilight with a gleam.

There is no sign of leaf or bud,
A hush is over everything—
Silent as women wait for love,
The world is waiting for the spring.

–Sara Teasdale

Five Boroughs, One City: Manhattan (Central Park at Dusk)

The SoundCloud page for Choral Arts Initiative.  A new choral ensemble bringing today's choral music to the community.  If you are an emerging choral composer or choral ensemble, please join our group: https://soundcloud.com/groups/emerging-choral-composers 

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Choral Arts Initiative has a recurring call for scores on our website here: http://choralartsinitiative.org/composer-submissions.html

"Armistice 1918: Everyone Sang" [Live]

Choral Arts Initiative

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