Choral Music

from the Modern Polyphony Mass - work in progress

Kyrie II - American Creators Chorus, Craig Hella Johnson, conductor

"Kyrie (dense)" for Mixed Choir

Winner of the American Prize in Choral Composition, 2015 (student)

Finalist piece in the Morton Gould Young Composers Awards, 2015

Performed by Choral Chameleon
Matthew Oltman, conductor
Vince Peterson, director
Kyle Randall, composer

Choral Chameleon Institute 2014 Closing Concert
June 20, 2014 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Brooklyn, NY


Lyrics:

Kyrie eleison        //         Lord have mercy
Christe eleison     //         Christ have mercy
Kyrie eleison        //         Lord have mercy

Kyrie (dense) - from the "New Gothic Mass"

Premiere by Ignition Duo (http://www.ignitionduo.com/): David Gonzales and Ramon Fermin on electric guitar at the Center for New Music, San Francisco.

This piece was commissioned for Ignition Duo in collaboration with the Guerrilla Composers Guild (http://www.guerrillamusic.org/), as part of a project to produce new works for electric guitar duo.

Zach Miley, recording

Winter Landscapes - for electric guitar duo

The world premiere performance of the "New Gothic Mass" for choir and organ, in San Francisco. 

Kyle Randall, conductor and composer 
Eric Choate, organist 
Collin Whitfield, assistant music director 

with a choir including: 
Kristina Blehm 
Sam Maurer 
Mark Shattuck 
Collin Whitfield 
Kevin Gino (soloist in the Sanctus) 
David Oorbeck 
and more 

Lyrics:

Kyrie eleison // Lord have mercy 
Christe eleison // Christ have mercy 
Kyrie eleison // Lord have mercy


Notes:

I'm thrilled to share this work, and to bring it to realization with the help of some truly amazing musicians. This mass is particularly close to my heart; in some ways it's fairly traditional—it is a mass, after all—but there's something about it that I find intensely new and striking, and I hope this comes through in the recording.

Before I began working on this piece, I had been wanting to write a mass for some time. I tried starting into the project several times, but while each followed the sentiment of the mass and illustrated the words well, something seemed to be missing. I knew that I would only be happy with a setting if it not only brought the words to life but presented a vivid musical interpretation of the idea of a mass. The music, in other words, would need to speak completely for itself.

It wasn't until an extended period of traveling across the country that the right ideas began to come. The Kyrie began to take shape during these travels, and most of that movement came suddenly during a wild thunderstorm in Brooklyn, while I sat in an old building looking out at the stone walls of an old cathedral. The feel of that thunderstorm is still almost tangible to me—as is the peculiar exhilaration and awe that I felt at seeing it after having been away from dramatic weather for years since moving from the east coast to San Francisco—and it stayed with me as I wrote the rest of the mass.

This setting of the mass is particularly dark and tremendous, and some may complain that movements like the Gloria are less celebratory than is conventional. For me, though, this is a sincere and deeply human interpretation. It focuses on the human experience of worship in a way that is perhaps closer to the medieval or Renaissance tradition than to the Classical and Romantic interpretations, embracing the turmoil, fear, awe, wonder, and sublimity inherent in the text and practice of the mass, and refusing to shy away from the intensity of the experience. In this way, I hope it evokes the ageless sentiments of the mass and brings them to the present in a way that feels both ancient and electrifyingly real.

Kyrie

The world premiere performance of the "New Gothic Mass" for choir and organ, in San Francisco. 

Kyle Randall, conductor and composer 
Eric Choate, organist 
Collin Whitfield, assistant music director 

with a choir including: 
Kristina Blehm 
Sam Maurer 
Mark Shattuck 
Collin Whitfield 
Kevin Gino (soloist in the Sanctus) 
David Oorbeck 
and more 

Lyrics:

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus // Holy, Holy, Holy 
Dominus Deus Sabaoth; // Lord God of Hosts; 
pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua // Heaven and earth are full of Your glory 
Hosanna in excelsis // Hosanna in the highest

Note:

I'm thrilled to share this work, and to bring it to realization with the help of some truly amazing musicians. This mass is particularly close to my heart; in some ways it's fairly traditional—it is a mass, after all—but there's something about it that I find intensely new and striking, and I hope this comes through in the recording.

Before I began working on this piece, I had been wanting to write a mass for some time. I tried starting into the project several times, but while each followed the sentiment of the mass and illustrated the words well, something seemed to be missing. I knew that I would only be happy with a setting if it not only brought the words to life but presented a vivid musical interpretation of the idea of a mass. The music, in other words, would need to speak completely for itself.

It wasn't until an extended period of traveling across the country that the right ideas began to come. The Kyrie began to take shape during these travels, and most of that movement came suddenly during a wild thunderstorm in Brooklyn, while I sat in an old building looking out at the stone walls of an old cathedral. The feel of that thunderstorm is still almost tangible to me—as is the peculiar exhilaration and awe that I felt at seeing it after having been away from dramatic weather for years since moving from the east coast to San Francisco—and it stayed with me as I wrote the rest of the mass.

This setting of the mass is particularly dark and tremendous, and some may complain that movements like the Gloria are less celebratory than is conventional. For me, though, this is a sincere and deeply human interpretation. It focuses on the human experience of worship in a way that is perhaps closer to the medieval or Renaissance tradition than to the Classical and Romantic interpretations, embracing the turmoil, fear, awe, wonder, and sublimity inherent in the text and practice of the mass, and refusing to shy away from the intensity of the experience. In this way, I hope it evokes the ageless sentiments of the mass and brings them to the present in a way that feels both ancient and electrifyingly real.

Sanctus

Premiered by Choral Chameleon in Brooklyn, NY. Vince Peterson, director.

Lyrics: To Autumn, by William Blake

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but stay
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till clust’ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather’d clouds strew flowers round her head.

“The spirits of the air live on the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.”

Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat;
Then rose, girded himself, and o’er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.

To Autumn

A suite of material for an environmental exploration and puzzle game called Origins. It takes place in a dark, enchanted forest.

Enchanted Forest - Origins Suite

The Sarabande for an upcoming solo piano suite

Sarabande

“Grains of Water” is an experiment in composing using completely computer generated materials. Though various parameters were set in hopes of achieving certain kinds of sounds, no material in the piece is constructed by hand, but rather by various semi-random processes. This is not to say that there is no active human element in the piece, however. Much of the material was shaped as a live performance, with the composer controlling various aspects of the sound in a musical way as they unfolded. The full piece was also performed this way, with all of the various materials set so that they could be mixed live and react to one another as the piece develops. 

The sound material of the piece is generated in a number of ways. The main variation between these methods is their treatment of time and their way of creating sound. The method of creating sound makes a significant difference in the feel of each of the materials, from simple synthesis using sine, triangle, and square waves to using generated midi data to control robust, pre-made synthesizers in music production software. In treating time, some of the generation processes use a method similar to musical meter, sometimes divided into various subdivisions, like the quarter notes in a bar. Most, however, treat the time between events as a randomly changing number, sometimes with different numbers all changing independently of one another and controlling different sounds. Pitch is almost always random here, though it is often shaped through various conventional scales. In fact, nearly all randomness in the piece is carefully controlled through a number of limiting parameters that are then used to shape the evolving material musically. 

Grains Of Water

Commissioned by and premiered by the Empire City Men's Chorus, as a part of their Composer-in-Residence program. Score available at http://www.kylerandall.com/#!shelter-song/c5q4 or by personal message.

Lyrics by Sam Jack

I built a house of wood,
of wood I split by axe
and seasoned slow, to set it
in its fixed death, day by day.

I built a house of brick,
of brick I forged in kilns,
and left to dry in rows
underneath the searing sun.

I delved into the ground
and found a hidden spring;
wherever I laid my head,
I could hear its round bells ring.

Ring higher than ears can hear.
Ring broader than arms can span.
Ring beneath our notice and
according to higher plans.

I built a house of stones,
of stones the water blessed.
Dear friend, unclasp your burden
and from all labors, rest.

Shelter Song - Lyrics by Sam Jack - Empire City Men's Chorus

A movement for string quartet heavily influenced by Tango rhythms, harmony, and forms.

Tango for String Quartet

Game Music Reel

A different kind of setting of the traditional "Gaudeamus igitur" text common in academic celebrations. The original text, originally sung in medieval times, is both a celebration of academia and life and also a reminder of its brevity. This setting takes a raw approach to that reality, and focuses on the need and immediacy of the celebration in a similar way to works like Orff's Carmina Burana.

Commissioned and performed by the Empire City Men's Chorus.

De Brevitate Vitae (Gaudeamus Igitur)

A trio for viola, cello, and bass

Sheet music available: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/publishers/kyle-randall-sheet-music/3003472

Deep Trio

A choir setting of Shakespeare's Sonnet #30, performed by the Harvard University Choir. Score available here: http://notenova.com/catalog/work/when-to-the-sessions-of-sweet-silent-thought/

When to the Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought

A TTBB choral setting of W.B. Yeat's poem, "When You Are Old", written for and premiered by the Harvard Glee Club in Carnegie Hall, January 2013.

When You Are Old

www.kylerandall.com

Born and raised in the forests of New Hampshire, Kyle Randall is an internationally-performed, award-winning composer of a wide variety of music, with premieres from Carnegie Hall to La Schola Cantorum in Paris, and commissions from renowned groups such as the Harvard Glee Club and Choral Chameleon. He strives for vividness and sincerity in his music, and he is not afraid to draw on the past as well as the present in his writing. After receiving a B.A. from Harvard, he came to San Francisco Conservatory to study with David Garner for a Masters in composition. Kyle was a winner of the American Prize in Composition for 2015, and a finalist in the Morton Gould ASCAP Composer prizes.

(photo credit Heike Liss, http://heikelisscreativeportraits.tumblr.com/)

Kyle C Randall

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