The Willow Consort directed by Danny Purtell

Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil, op.37: Movement 12; Velokoye slavosloviye (excerpt)

A small excerpt from our debut performance at The Bar Convent Chapel.  The Willow Consort directed by Danny Purtell.

Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil, op.37: Movement 9; Blagosloven yesi, Gospodi. (excerpt)

A live recording of Herbert Howells' Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing. 

The Willow Consort | Danny Purtell 

Herbert Howells: Take Him, Earth, For Cherishing

A complete recording of James MacMillan's Tenebrae Responsories.

i. Tenebrae Factae Sunt
ii. Tradiderunt Me
iii. Jesum Tradidit Impius*

The Willow Consort | Danny Purtell
*Soloist: Georgie Gulliver
www.willowconsort.com
Facebook: willowconsort1
Twitter: @WillowConsort


James MacMillan: Tenebrae Responsories

The Willow Consort's first commission; Love Bade Me Welcome, by William Drakett

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, 
guilty of dust and sin. 
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
from my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
if I lack’d anything.

“A guest,: I answer’d, “worthy to be here.”
Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on Thee”
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
“Who made the eyes but I?”

“Truth, Lord; but I have marred them: let my shame 
go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “Who bore the blame?”
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
So I did sit and eat.
George Herbert (1593-1633)


William Drakett: Love Bade Me Welcome

Ben Rowarth's There Is No Rose sung by The Willow Consort directed by Danny Purtell



recorded by:
www.davidrosesoundservices.co.UK

Ben Rowarth: There Is No Rose

Live concert performance from The Willow Consort's tour to Prague.
St. Salvator's Church

The Willow Consort directed by Danny Purtell
Baritone Soloist: George Clark

Rain is a joint commission by The Willow Consort and Durham University Chamber Choir. It sets a poem by Edward Thomas. Thomas wrote all of his war poetry in England whilst he was in training to go to France, we see in his poetry the impact of the First World War on his mind rather than his response to the experiences of battle.

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks For washing me cleaner than I have been Since I was born into solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon: But here I pray that none whom once I loved Is dying tonight or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds, Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be towards what is perfect and Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.

Danny Purtell: Rain

The Willow Consort directed by Danny Purtell perform Robert Parsons' Ave Maria. 

This is a live recording from our tour to Prague

Alto: Rosie Parker, Bec Duggan
Tenor 1: Ben Inman, Freddie Stanford
Tenor 2: Oliver Hooper, Joe Tobin
Baritone: George Clark, William Drakett
Bass: Jack Comerford, Thomas Lowen

Robert Parsons: Ave Maria (LIVE)

Live recording of Pavel Chesnokov's Tebe Poem in the Chapter House at York Minster.

As heard on Classic FM

Pavel Chesnokov: Tebe Poem

Live recording from our concert Bach Re-Imagined

Recording by David Rose

Bach Re-Imagined

Knut Nystedt: Immortal Bach

Commissioned in 2015 by Durham University Chamber Choir as a prelude to Rachmaninoff's 'All-Night Vigil'.



The work has been conceived to emulate many of the traditional features of Russian sacred music whilst employing ‘modern’ effects and a more adventurous harmonic language. The work starts with a solo soprano voice, portraying an angel, which is joined by the rest of sopranos, soaring above the choir in a quasi-improvised style. The rest of the choir sing homophonically the words of the hymn to free rhythm following the natural flow of the words. The work ends with the chorus of angels, above the rest of the choir, dissipating to the solo angel voice alone.

Now The Powers of Heaven

Purtell: Cherubic Hymn

Founded in 2014, The Willow Consort is an exciting new chamber choir based at The University of York directed by Danny Purtell. We perform a wide range of repertoire, from Renaissance to contemporary works. 

All of our singers have been hand-picked and sing with some of the top amateur and professional choirs in the country, including: I Fagiolini, Genesis Sixteen, The Carice Singers, Renaissance, The National Youth Choir of Great Britain and many more. 

We are looking forward to bringing many exciting programmes of choral music to audiences in York, the rest of the United Kingdom and further afield.

The Willow Consort

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