Firefly (1999)

A tricky eight-part piece (SSAATTBB), with close harmonies, frequent key changes and chromatic movement - a challenge for a more experienced choir, highly effective in evoking the darkness that Christ's coming can bring us out of.
Order copies at https://musicspoke.com/downloads/o-clavis-david
This recording is made with cantamus.app.

O Clavis David - made with Cantamus

A new setting of Psalm 24, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates" commissioned by the Edinburgh Festival of the Sacred Arts to celebrate the 375th anniversary of the Scottish Psalter of 1650, generously funded by Canonmills Baptist Church. This recording is from the premiere performance on 13th August 2025 in Sacred Heart Church, Edinburgh, sung by the Sacred Arts Festival Singers directed by Calum Robertson with John Kitchen on organ.

The concert also featured premieres of new works by Zoe Lucia Watkins, Alexander McNamee and Jonathan Love.

It also received a lovely review in the Edinburgh Guide:

"‘Lift up your heads’ required eight parts, but the resulting sound left you stunned into silence. It unashamedly combined the full-choir and organ, though peppered with meaningful moments where the voices shone beautifully and unaccompanied... a highly impressive programme – a real joy to hear some freshly composed works, and to behold the inspiring great talent of the young musicians who wrote them." (https://edinburghguide.com/festival/2025/the-scottish-metrical-psalter-church-of-the-sacred-heart-review-21797)

For a copy of the score, contact Chris on hutchingsmusic@hotmail.com.

Lift Up Your Heads - premiere

“Statue Songs” is a song cycle for SABar choir and piano, about 20 minutes long, written for Dingwall Choral Society. This is a demo of the first movement made with cantamus.app. See https://www.hutchingsmusic.co.uk/scores-by-choir-type/small-mixed-choirs/ for further information and previews of the other four movements - total length of the cycle is 25 minutes.

Over the sea, in a land beyond borders
Deep in a valley stands a tall tree
Down in the roots, by a fathomless well
There we keep vigil, my sisters and me

All through night the women are weaving
Weaving while mortals snore in their beds
All through the night, shuttles are flying
The warp, and the weft, and the tying of threads

You may be a lord with a lover clandestine
You may be a spy with secrets to sell
We knew your deceit before you conceived it
Me and my sisters who weave at the well

Courtesans, conquerors, shop girls and slaves
Warriors who fought, warriors who fell
Your stories are told in the burgeoning tapestry
Woven by sisters down at the well

All through night the women are weaving
Weaving while mortals snore in their beds
All through the night, shuttles are flying
The warp and the weft, and the tying of threads

What do we hear in the still of the evening?
Whispers of trysts, rumours of war
The rumbling of empires rising and falling
The roar of the powerful, the cries of the poor

What do we see when we look in the water?
Unions, betrayals, battles at sea
Promises kept and promises broken
All that once was, and all that will be

All through night the women are weaving
Weaving while mortals snore in their beds
All through the night, shuttles are flying
The warp and the weft, and the tying of threads

Come, if you dare, to the land beyond borders
Come to the valley deep in the glen
Come to the pool in the roots of the tree
Boldest of women, bravest of men

Boldest of men, bravest of women
This is the place where dreams are unfurled
Questions are answered before they are spoken
Here at the well at the end of the world

All through night the women are weaving
Weaving while mortals snore in their beds
All through the night, shuttles are flying
The warp and the weft, and the tying of threads.

Three Sisters (2025 version) Cantamus demo with piano 2025

Wolken im Kaffee, for flute and live electronics (effect pedals).
Performed by Marina Iglesias (NAMES Ensemble).
Recording of the premiere at the Salzburger Festtage 2024.

Wolken im Kaffee (2024) | Michele Abondano

A new piece written today! (7th December 2025) For flexible choir - the demo here is made with cantamus.app for SATB but it could be performed by any group that can divide into 4 parts. Ideal as a church choir introit for Advent but could work as an introit or short anthem/motet for other times of year as well.

The lyrics are from the Affirmation of Faith used at Greyfriars Kirk  on 7th Dec 2025 (very slightly altered) and are by Herbert Kerrigan:
We believe the day is coming
when justice will flourish and peace will embrace the earth,
and all creation will sing for joy.
Until that day, we prepare the way of the Lord;
living in hope, speaking for peace,
bearing the light of Christ to the world.

Until That Day - Cantamus demo

Indivisibility (2024, for two double basses)

Commission: ELISION 

Supported by APRA AMCOS Art Music Fund

First performance: Kathryn Schulmeister and Rohan Dasika (ELISION), 15.12.2024, Melbourne, Australia

In theoretical physics, there is a concept known as the Planck length, which basically defines the smallest unit of length. Its usefulness is in simplifying some of the more fundamental equations. It is not, however, the smallest unit of length in existence in the universe (a common misconception). If smaller units are used, then quantum uncertainty comes into play. In a way, the Planck length defines the limit of certainty in understanding physical universe. If this threshold is crossed, a different reality is found.

In this work, the sounding equivalent of length as a distance between two points is the difference between the sounds produced by the two double basses, and the process that their interactions form. This process is driven by the idea of indivisibility (reducing the smallest difference) as an attempt to enter a different reality. The instruments merge their energies to blur the distance between their voices: instead of two voices, there seems to be one voice but with multiple dimensions. The idea of crossing over and approaching indivisibility is represented literally through a particular technique towards the end of the piece: each player detunes one string and then pulls it over the adjacent lower string while bowing the two strings. 

The music itself is not so much about quantum physics. The concept of the Planck length was a conceptual starting point in building a musical world where the two voices discover a way to become one. This process is established through explorations of the instruments’ sounding possibilities that go much deeper than a surface-level resolution of the idea, such as playing in unison! The aim of this work is to tell a story of transformation, where the instruments establish a sound-world of their own. In this journey, the unity of purpose in their evolving is what makes them indivisible. 

Indivisibility [ELISION]

An arrangement of Good King Wenceslas for SABar choir. Demo recording made with cantamus.app.

Good King Wenceslas - Cantamus demo

Stephen Mosa’ati, trumpet 
Berta Brozgul, piano.

***

Commissioned by the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) as part of the ANAM Set 2025 and written for Stephen Mosa’ati, with its world premiere during ANAM’s 2025 recital season at the Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne. The ANAM Set 2025 is generously supported by the Anthony and Sharon Lee Foundation.
 
The ANAM Set 2025 was recorded in the Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre by ABC Classic - Duncan Yardley, Producer and Russell Thomson, Audio Engineer. Performed by Stephen Mosa’ati, trumpet and Berta Brozgul, piano.

Fata Morgana

Jane Stanley is an Australian composer and Lecturer in Music at the University of Glasgow. She specialises in composition for acoustic media. Her music has been performed and broadcast throughout the world, having featured at festivals and conferences including ISCM World Music Days, Gaudeamus Music Week, Asian Composers League, Wellesley Composers Conference, and June in Buffalo. She received her PhD from the University of Sydney and in 2004-5 she was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University. Her teachers include Anne Boyd, Peter Sculthorpe, Ross Edwards, and Bernard Rands. She has been a composition fellow at Tanglewood Music Center and Aspen Music Festival and School. Her music has been recorded for release by artists in Australia and the UK and she has received commissions from Tanglewood, Musica Viva, Bernadette Harvey, Continuum Sax, and Halcyon. She is a founding member of the Young Academy of Scotland and is a represented composer at the Australian Music Centre. [www.janestanley.blog]

Firefly (1999)

janestanley

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