#5177, Choral Music
There's choral music for grown up and younger choirs from LA-based Canadian composer Sarah Davachi, English composer Pete Wyer, and Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy.
Sarah Davachi -- Photo by Sean McCann
Hear music from L.A.-based Canadian composer and keyboardist Sarah Davachi: her suite of three choral pieces, called Songs of the Smile’s Fig, commissioned by Louth Contemporary Music Society in Dundalk, Ireland. The piece “takes its title and its words from André Breton, leader of the surrealists. A line from his Les Attitudes spectrales (1926) gives us, in David Gascoyne’s translation: ‘They who bit the smile’s fig’, characteristic of early surrealist poetry in juxtaposing the irreconcilable. Davachi chose words and phrases from this and other poems for her singers, whose long-held tones and intertwinings of unrelated material will diminish our experience of verbal sense”, (Paul Griffiths in the Bandcamp liner notes for LCMS).
Then, listen to some of Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy’s opera, The First Child which grapples with, among other issues, the impact of childhood bullying and the negative outcomes that can last a lifetime, using the voices of the Irish National Opera Children's Choir, with the Crash Ensemble, and the Irish National Opera. Also, hear a portion of Pete M. Wyer's New Sounds Live commission, “Song of the Human," a work for both birdsong and human voices, featuring Philadelphia-based choir, The Crossing. Plus, there’s music from Estonian singer, violinist, electroacoustic composer Maarja Nuut arranged for the Ellerhein Girls Choir, in a song to the sun, “Veere veere paevakene” (roll along, roll dear sun). That, and more. - Caryn Havlik
#5177, Choral Music (First aired 8/27/26)
ARTIST: Girls Choir Ellerhein/Ingrid Korvits
WORK: Maarja Nuut/Tonis Korvits: Veere veere paevakene (Roll on Roll on, Dear sun) [1:13]
RECORDING: Songs of Light
SOURCE: Ellerhein / Tallinna Huvikeskus Kullo
INFO: https://ellerhein.ee/en/
ARTIST: Sarah Davachi, CHAMBER CHOIR IRELAND, conducted by Nils Schweckendiek
WORK: Songs of the Smile's Fig I. Hours [5:25]
RECORDING: The Will of Tongues
SOURCE: LATE Music
INFO: https://sarahdavachi.bandcamp.com/album/the-will-of-tongues
ARTIST: The Crossing, Donald Nally, conductor
WORK: Pete M. Wyer: Song of the Human - For Now And Only For Now [13:43]
RECORDING: New Sounds Live at Brookfield Place, 10/12/2016
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: https://pmwmusic.com/
ARTIST: Sarah Davachi, CHAMBER CHOIR IRELAND, conducted by Nils Schweckendiek
WORK: Songs of the Smile's Fig II. Salts [4:56]
RECORDING: The Will of Tongues
SOURCE: LATE Music
INFO: https://sarahdavachi.bandcamp.com/album/the-will-of-tongues
ARTIST: Girls Choir Ellerhein/Ingrid Korvits
WORK: Maarja Nuut/Tonis Korvits: Veere veere paevakene (Roll on Roll on, Dear sun) [5:25]
RECORDING: Songs of Light
SOURCE: Ellerhein / Tallinna Huvikeskus Kullo
INFO: https://ellerhein.ee/en/
ARTIST: Irish National Opera, Crash Ensemble, Ryan McAdams, Irish National Opera Children's Choir
WORK: Donnacha Dennehy: The First Child - Ignored by Time [3:11]
RECORDING: Donnacha Dennehy & Enda Walsh: The First Child
SOURCE: Signum Records
INFO: https://orcd.co/thefirstchild
ARTIST: Kronos Quartet, San Francisco Girls Choir, Earl L.Miller, reed organ
WORK: Aulis Sallinen: Winter Was Hard Op.20 [1:45]
RECORDING: Winter Was Hard
SOURCE: Nonesuch
INFO: nonesuch.com
ARTIST: Irish National Opera, Crash Ensemble, Ryan McAdams, Irish National Opera Children's Choir
WORK: Donnacha Dennehy: The First Child - Does the light forget ever [2:33]
RECORDING: Donnacha Dennehy & Enda Walsh: The First Child
SOURCE: Signum Records
INFO: https://orcd.co/thefirstchild
ARTIST: Sarah Davachi, CHAMBER CHOIR IRELAND, conducted by Nils Schweckendiek
WORK: Songs of the Smile's Fig III. Follies [4:51]
RECORDING: The Will of Tongues
SOURCE: LATE Music
INFO: https://sarahdavachi.bandcamp.com/album/the-will-of-tongues
