Choral Compositions

Shine out, fair sun

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

Willow-dreams at dawn

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

O sacrum convivium

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

Choral Compositions

rorywainwrightjohnston