for SATB choir, strings, harp, and percussion

Setting fragments of texts by Thomas Traherne, Richard Crashaw, John Bunyan, William Blake, and an anonymous haiku:

 Lord!
 O hear how short I breathe!
 What will Wrath's sea, so foully fierce, not dare?
 See how I tremble here beneath
 A sin! its ugly face
 More terror than its dwelling-place
 Contains, (O dreadful sin)
 Within!

 As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted
 on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down
 in that place to sleep: and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream.

 From dust I rise,
 And out of nothing now awake,
 The Sun arises in the East
 Cloth'd in robes of blood and gold,
 Crown'd with warlike fires and raging desires,
 Leading towards the unknown;
 Hope's path carved anew.


Commissioned and performed by Bedford Choral Society and Bedford Sinfonia, conducted by Ian Smith in Bedford Corn Exchange on 21/6/25

Carved Anew - for SATB choir, strings, harp, and percussion (2025)

Composer - gregmay2001@gmail.com
Greg is a 23 year old composer, currently studying composition with Matthew Kaner at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He previously studied with Christian Mason at Cambridge University, and with David Knotts and Edmund Jolliffe at the Junior department of the Royal Academy of Music from 2017-2020 on a scholarship. His pieces have been played in venues including St. John's Smith Square, King's Place, and Kettle's Yard, and performers including Rolf Hind, Susanne Kessel, the BBC Concert Orchestra, and the Rothko Collective. He's attended masterclasses and received tutoring from composers Helen Grime, Stephen Goss, Diana Burrell, Dobrinka Tabakova, Hannah Kendall, and Richard Causton. He was a winner in the 2020 BBC Young Composer Competition.

Carved Anew - for SATB choir, strings, harp, and percussion (2025)

Gregory May