Tenor - Rory Johnston
Piano - Greg Reid

The emotions of losing a loved one are what Nostalgia aims to explore. The poems, written by Eli Carvajal, fall into an arc of sweet remembrance followed by sorrow and then a realisation of loneliness. This is mirrored by their use of seasonal themes, beginning with the summer sun and ending with bare trees in winter. 

The introduction attempts to evoke the protagonist’s despair, forcing an escape from reality through fleeting memories. Initially quite joyful; each passing song darkens the protagonist’s reverie until it is eclipsed by an overwhelming crisis; Realisation, the piano interlude, which marks the beginning of a downward spiral of depression.

Throughout this song cycle I combine the wistful lyricism of German Lieder written by composers such as Schumann, Schubert and Wolf, with the ethereal sound world of Toru Takemitsu to try to achieve a sense of timelessness and reflection. 

The cycle is left open ended, with the protagonist singing of their isolation, and reminding the listener that sometimes in life things don’t resolve the way we’d want them to.

Dedicated to Paul James Moscardini



Nostalgia - Song Cycle for High Voice and Piano

Choral Compositions

Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott is a novella written to comment on the hierarchy of Victorian culture. The book depicts a two-dimensional world filled with two-dimensional people and because of this has been used, notably by Carl Sagan, as an allegory for examining and explaining extra dimensions.

In Sagan’s metaphor an anthropomorphic square who lives in Flatland is visited by a three-dimensional creature that proceeds to knock the square out of two-dimensional Flatland and into the three-dimensional world of ‘up-down’. The square later floats back down to flatland, affected by his experience, but not quite sure about the place he was just in.
 
twodimensional replicates this idea of being confined to a limited number of dimensions by restricting the use of all but one pitch class, and instead exploring the different ‘dimensions’ of timbre and articulation.


twodimensional

Meditatio - LIVE

A setting of Eli Carvajal's Willow-dreams at dawn for vocal trio 'III'.

Willow-dreams at dawn

VI. Realisation

V. Lady Willow

IV. Melancholy May

III. Like the Dove

I. In the dark... & II. What did we say

Kantos Chamber Choir
28th May 2016
Chorlton Central Church
Chorlton Arts Festival

Recording ® Sam Gee 2016

Rory Wainwright Johnston - Love; an ever fixed mark

This piece is formed out of three poems written by Eli Carvajal: ‘urban breakdown’, ‘Down by the brook’, and ‘Here I am again’. The two outer poems talk of the business of inner city life, but have a sense of yearning for more peaceful, countryside scenes, while the middle poem evokes a rural reverie of times past. I have tried to mirror this escape from hectic life in the music. The piece begins with cars passing in the dead of night; this develops gradually into the sound of sirens with the uncertainty of the bustling streets reflected in the lopsided rhythms. As the sirens fade, the protagonist sinks into a dream of calmer pastures. After the distant sentiments of ‘Down by the brook’ pass, the protagonist is then forced back to reality by the returning sound of sirens only to realise their isolation: ‘a carriage crash through sunsets gold, a passenger alone…’

Soprano soloist – Chloe Jackson


urban breakdown

Performed by Firecrest vocal trio - Lizzy Humphries, Jocelyn Coates and Anna Rea - on May 16th at King Charles Court in Trinity Laban.

I cannot go

This setting of the well known Marian antiphon Ave Regina Caelorum (Hail Queen of Heaven) takes its inspiration from Renaissance metrical equivalence and Medieval hocketing. The opening of the piece takes the two latin words Ave, or ‘Hail’, and Gaude, or ‘Rejoice’, and juxtaposes their character with the jovial Gaude bounding forwards with energy, and the more firm salutation of Ave gradually getting closer until we get the full force of its character the first time we hear the entire phrase Ave Regina Caelorum, cementing it’s majestic presence. The music then moves into a more introspective moment with the text ‘Salve, radix, salve porta – Ex qua mundo lux est orta’ before the choir then break out again into the rhythmic and excited material from the opening, but this time superimposed with the harmonies of the ‘Ave Regina Caelorum’ motif.  This movement finally arrives at its harmonic resolution but the metre is keeps pushing, unrelenting to the end.

Performed by Ad Solem in the New Music North West Festival 16/11/17, conducted by Robert Guy

Ave Regina caelorum

Monochrome after Frey

Flock

O sacrum convivium

In soft focus

Arrangements of Tom Waits songs for the play 'Graveyard John' at the Egg Theatre, Bath

Gods away on business

This piece was inspired by the work of Jurg Frey and utilises meandering non-functional chord progressions and silence to achieve a texture that is static, but always moving; atemporal, but everlasting.

Performed by Kantos Chamber Choir, conducted by Ellie Slorach

rorywainwrightjohnston

Pinned to spotlight

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