Sample Recordings

Composed by Christopher Healey

www.facebook.com/chrishealeymusic
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Piano: Corey Sinclair
Soprano: Marielle Allan

Original Text:
When death comes and whispers to me,
"Thy days are ended,"
let me say to him, "I have lived in love
and not in mere time."
He will ask, "Will thy songs remain?"
I shall say, "I know not, but this I know
that often when I sang I found my eternity."

From Tagore Rabindranath's 'Fireflies'

Text as set:
"Thy days are ended,"
"Will thy songs remain?"
let me say "I have lived in love."

St Tagore's Cathedral - Thy Days

Miniature 6

Birches

Birches was written several years ago and was one of the very first works I wrote after starting my Bachelor of Music degree. The work is very much inspired by the poem by Robert Frost of the same name. The first few lines begin as follows:
  
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.  

If you haven’t read the poem before, I recommend it. The imagery and the themes of youth, spirituality, natural world and the human imagination, make it beautiful in Frosts unique, controlled and metaphorical style of writing.  In particular, the crystalline imagery of vast snowfields and bent Birches really spoke to me musically. The opening lines capture this, as well as a sense of fragility that I find runs through Frost’s poem.  A few other lines worth mentioning here are:

 I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.

The work’s structure reflects this journey, moving from the snowy ground, up, up, towards the heavens, only to fall back to earth.

Performed by Brijette Tubb

Birches for Solo Flute

Performed by members from the Hartford Independent Chamber Orchestra

Topography

The piece for soprano and sextet (Pierrot Lunaire instrumentation) is a setting of several haikus. The music is filled with resonant spaces and colours, the sextet providing a shifting tapestry of sound over which the soprano sings the haikus. The music has been written to flow and float, like a bubbling stream, repeating figures in gestures, but in a way which captures the subtle irregularity of all natural things in its fine details.
The music is also rich with melodies, but they are melodies of the moment, spontaneous, free and unfettered. In listening, allow yourself to sit in the sound, luxuriate in it, let it bubble away, and be particularly aware of the space and spaciousness.

---

The sea darkens,
The voices of the wild ducks
Are faintly white.
***
In the dark forest
A berry drops.
The sound of the water.
***
The stars on the pond.
Again the winter shower
Ruffles the water.
***
A cluster of summer trees
A glimpse of the sea
A pale evening moon.
***
A fallen leaf
Returning to the branch?
Butterfly
***
The sea darkens,
A berry drops.
A pale evening moon.

Gardens Of My Heart

From the Colours of Creation 2012 Concert. Performed by John Addison (cello) and Adam McMillan (Piano). This was a live performance and they didn't have very long to learn the piece it so forgive them the occasionally rough edges. They did a wonderful job and I'm very very thankful to them both!

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Cello and Piano Sonatina

An excerpt from "Piano Trio" by Elizabeth Younan (2018). Performed by Jenny Chen (piano), William Tsutomu Copeland (violin), and Francis Carr (cello), at Field Concert Hall, the Curtis Institute of Music, 12/12/18.

Piano Trio (Excerpt)

Live in recital at the Queensland Conservatorium, 2014.

Rachmaninoff - Sonata no. 2 in b-flat minor

Is there no thinking?

Soprano: Amber Evan's
Piano: Adam McMillan


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Text:
Let me not grope in vain in the dark
but keep my mind still in the faith
that the day will break
and truth will appear
in its simplicity. 
(From Fireflies by Tagore Rabindranath)

Gardens Of My Heart

Chris Healey - Composer

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Angus Davison | Composer

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