Name: This Shining Night by christopher churcher
Duration: 5 min 14 s
Description: Performed by Tom Bell, on the organ of Romsey Abbey

Suite (2021)
world premiere, recorded at Wigmore Hall, July 2022

Explore Ensemble:
Taylor MacLennon, fl
Alex Roberts, cl
David López Ibáñez, vln
Morag Robertson, vla
Deni Teo, cello
Siwan Rhys, piano/kbd

Nicholas Moroz, audio recording/mixing

full video performance here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlpdFkvEdLo

co-commissioned by Wigmore Hall and Explore Ensemble, supported by Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation

art: Maria Sibylla Merian — ‘Pineapple and examples of five insects’, from Merian's Drawings of Surinam Insects (1701-5)

Prerecorded sounds utilise three public domain field recordings:
1. Sounds of a pier being demolished near the entrance to the Terminal Island Prison and Deportation Center, Los Angeles, US. Rec. Steven Rowell, 2012.
2. School children sing national anthem in the morning before class in Pokigron, Boven, Suriname. Rec. Gerrit Kalsbeek, 2000.
3. Jarred fruit flies trapped in an empty, unrinsed wine bottle, Tartu, Estonia. Rec. Patrick Tubin McGinley, 2011.

Suite

Performed by Tom Bell, on the organ of Romsey Abbey

This Shining Night

For Orchestra (2222/221/2Perc/Pn/Hp/Strings)
Year of Composition: 2008
Score available at:
http://www.katiagocs.com

Requiem Fragments (Orchestra)

Blue

A Case of You

Nocturne (2014)
for orchestra

3222 / 4331 / timp / 2 perc / hp / strings
or 3333 / 4331 / timp / 2 perc / hp / piano (celesta) / strings

Nocturne for orchestra (2014)

Hugh Wolff conducts the New England Conservatory Philharmonia in a performance of Debussy's La mer. Recorded live April 13, 2011 at NEC's Jordan Hall.
For more information: http://necmusic.edu 

Debussy: La mer -  From dawn to midday on the sea

Ivor Gurney's first world war poem, 'On Somme' set to music for the Martin Read Foundation. Nicholas Bosworth on Piano and Philip Smith singing Baritone.

On Somme

Written for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s new music group, Ensemble 10/10, for their 21st birthday concert on 10th October 2018 under Clark Rundell.

I - 'In Sheep's Clothing'
II - 'and, between light and darkness'
III - 'To Breathe Now'

‘Upon Weightless Wings (2018) for large chamber ensemble is written in three movements, each taking inspiration from separate contemporary artworks. The first, ‘In Sheep’s Clothing’, is a slow, dark movement taking its title inspiration from the pine sculpture of the same name by Martin Puryear (1996). The second movement ‘and, between light and darkness’, is based upon the oil painting ‘Y una entre luz y penumbra’ (2006) by Manuel Huertas Torrejon, in which two birds perch facing each other on a ledge, one in shadow and the other illuminated by daylight. The final movement, ‘To Breathe Now’, is inspired by the installation ‘To Breathe – A Mirror Woman’ (2006) by multidisciplinary artist Kimsooja, in which she transformed a palace into a glorious display of reflected rainbows. Across the three movements the piece explores themes of liberation; transitioning from darkness to light, restrain to freedom. It is a work written to celebrate new beginnings, to have weightless wings.' ©G.E.M.2018
 

©Cover Image: 'Wings' Painting by Grace-Evangeline Mason 2018

More information: www.graceevangelinemason.com

Upon Weightless Wings (2018) [In 3 movements]

Extract, sample live recording (2017)

‘Blinding, Burning, Lovely’ for soprano and ensemble is a setting of the poem ‘The Falling Star’ by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933). Throughout the piece, the soprano moves from a vernacular to a stylized manner of singing as the work expands and grows outwards from the first spoken word. The piece aims to create an atmospheric soundworld by the use of repeating iridescent harmonics textures underneath.

I saw a star slide down the sky, 
Blinding the north as it went by, 
Too burning and too quick to hold, 
Too lovely to be bought or sold, 
Good only to make wishes on
And then forever to be gone.
- The Falling Star by Sara Teasdale

Blinding, Burning, Lovely (2017) [Live Excerpt]

Performed by:

Fenella Humphries: Vln I & II
Katherine Clarke: Vla
Sebrina Lambert-rose: Vc

Programme Note"

"A painting is not a picture of an experience, but is the experience"  -  Mark Rothko

-  Can the experience of the Rothko Room at the Tate Modern be 
   conveyed in music?
-  What does the two fields of colour mean in music?  
-  Where does our perception of the paintings change in relation to 
   distance?
-  Is there a structural journey within the paintings?
-  Why do these paintings ingulf ones sensory experience?
-  How can the detailed brush strokes be translated into music?

This Shining Night

christopher churcher

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