SACDs - O'Regan

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O'Regan: Acallam na Senorach (Tales of the Elders)

O'Regan: Acallam na Senorach (Tales of the Elders)


Stewart French (guitar)

National Chamber Choir of Ireland, Paul Hillier

Acallam na Senórach, a major new choral work by Tarik O’Regan, received its world premiere in Dublin on November 25th 2010 in a performance by the National Chamber Choir of Ireland under its Artistic Director Paul Hillier.

Sung in English and Middle Irish, the piece takes its title from the c12th century narrative (‘Tales of the Elders’) and follows the story of two legendary heroes, Caílte and Oisín, and their travels around Ireland with Saint Patrick. Over the course of 60 minutes O’Regan’s piece presents six stories from the text using a choir of 16 voices punctuated by interludes from a solo guitar played by Stewart French. Two singers are also called upon to play the traditional Irish frame drum, the bodhráin. Commissioned by the National Chamber Choir, Acallam na Senórach builds on O’Regan’s earlier The Spring, which was premiered at the Cork International Choral Festival in 2008.

“O’Regan’s 62-minute work is in a slow-moving, pared-back style, mock-ancient you might say, but not ethnically specific. It’s almost ritualistically purposeful in its concentration on narrative, as it shifts between monodic delivery and a range of soft choral dissonances...The performance under Paul Hillier is first-rate” The Irish Times, 7th October 2011 ***

“ Led by Paul Hillier, the National Chamber Choir of Ireland negotiates dissonance and harmony with drama and nobility, never endangering the piece through pomposity – a delicate balance aided by the sparseness of the guitar.” The Independent, 14th October 2011 ****

“The singing itself is as spot on as you would expect from the National Chamber Choir of Ireland, who were responsible for commissioning the work in the first place. Aside from the sheer quality of their overall sound, there's a lovely sense of intimacy and wonder-filled narration. All told, this is yet another beautiful Tarik O'Regan disc” bbc.co.uk, 21th October 2011

“O'Regan reveals that he is capable of sustaining interest over what amounts to a 60-minute time frame...a highly effective and, in places, inspired piece, beautifully delivered by Paul Hillier and the National Chamber Choir of Ireland, and cleanly captured in this fine Harmonia Mundi recording.” Gramophone Magazine, March 2012

“Simply said, O'Regan's work is an achievement. One does not feel that one is hearing a musical performance. Instead, it is as if the listener is party to a legend's retelling...This is also an achievement for Paul Hillier and the National Chamber Choir of Ireland...Frankly, choral singing this intense and controlled is rather intimidating, if not downright scary...This requires work from the listener, but is it worth the effort.” International Record Review, February 2012

Super Audio CD

Format:

Hybrid Multi-channel

Harmonia Mundi - HMU807486

(SACD)

$17.50

In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day.

Tarik O'Regan - Threshold of Night

Tarik O'Regan - Threshold of Night

Music for Voices & Strings


O'Regan:

Had I Not Seen the Sun

The Ecstasies Above

Threshold of Night

Tal vez tenemos tiempo

Care Charminge Sleepe

Triptych:Threnody

As We Remember Them:From Heaven

Distilled a Clemency

I Had No Time To Hate


Company of Voices & Conspirare, Craig Hella Johnson

World Premiere Recordings.

A selection of new works by the young British composer Tarik O'Regan, here given their première recordings.Written since his move to New York, these compositions forge a link between the spheres of 'the ecstasies above' and the harsh realities of life on earth. The two short Emily Dickinson settings that open and close this programme were commissioned by Conspirare and Craig Hella Johnson for this recording. The Ecstasies Above (2006) takes for its title a phrase found in the lyric poem, Israfel, by Edgar Allan Poe. Musically the score makes much use of textural variation between the three groups (full chorus, solo octet and string quartet). Threshold of Night (Kathleen Raine) was commissioned by St. John's College, Cambridge and was premièred under the direction of David Hill in the College chapel on November 25, 2006.The piece went on to win a 2007 British Composer Award. Tal vez tenemos tiempo (Maybe we have time) was also commissioned specifically for this recording by Conspirare. It sets a poem of the same name by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Written in 1999, Care Charminge Sleepe is scored for double choir, and is a faithful reproduction of John Fletcher's original 17th-century text, with anachronistic spelling, as set in the musical score of Valentinian III by Robert Johnson.Triptych represents the concatenation of two commissions. Threnody was commissioned with funds from the RVW Trust for the inaugural concert of the Choir of London conducted by Jeremy Summerly in Christ Church, Spitalfields on December 18, 2004; As We Remember Them and From Heaven Distilled a Clemency, were premièred as And There Was a Great Calm at Portsmouth Anglican Cathedral on November 13, 2005. Two-time British Composer Award winner Tarik O'Regan has been hailed as "a brilliant new voice" Houston Chronicle whose music 'has a gritty freshness unlike that of anyone else',The Independent. He divides his time between New York City and Trinity College, Cambridge, and is currently working on an operatic version of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, in collaboration with the artist Tom Phillips, which is in development with OperaGenesis at the Royal Opera House. Conspirare celebrated its 15th performance season in 2007-08 under the leadership of founder and Artistic Director Craig Hella Johnson. Conspirare is comprised of three performing ensembles: a professional chamber choir, a symphonic choir of both professional and volunteer singers and the Conspirare Children's Choir, a training programme for ages 9-16. Conspirare was the only choir from the United States invited to perform at the 8th World Symposium on Choral Music in Copenhagen in July 2008.

“It's difficult to describe O'Regan's music without recourse to smiles based on light. His writing for the upper voices, especially, shimmers and shines, often suggesting outpourings of celestial radiance.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2008 ****

“one of the most gifted young British composers writing for massed voices at the moment” International Record Review

“The polished performance by US choir Conspirare with string ensemble breathes energy into a series of diverse texts crafted into pieces that are a masterclass in how to refine ideas, by a composer with a profound understanding of how to write for choirs.” Choir & Organ *****

“One of the finest discs dedicated to an individual contemporary composer I have heard this year” Organists Review

“Tarik O'Regan can justifiably stake a claim as one of the leading British choral composers of his generation. This is supported to an extent by the seven choral compositions contained on this recording.
At the basis of O'Regan's style lies a thoroughgoing understanding of both the English choral tradition and medieval music, a knowledge gained from studies at Oxford and Cambridge.
But recent works suggest that he casts his creative net much wider these days. Post-minimal and pop features can be detected in the use of straightforward harmonic progressions and melodic repetitions in the final sections of both The Ecstasies Above and Triptych, where O'Regan dispenses with contrapuntal complexity for a direct and unadorned approach. If this suggests an American influence then it is also evident in his choice of text settings, with Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson's poetry framing the collection.
However, it is sometimes difficult not to draw comparisons between the often static, sometimes propulsive, polymodal layers incorporated throughout O'Regan's music (especially effective in Care Charming Sleepe) and similar processes at work in the choral writing of John Adams. In contrast, Adams has effected a fine timbral and textural balance between voices and instruments in his music – homogeneity rather than hierarchy – but one senses that the string instruments contained on this recording struggle to find their place in and among the dense choral web.”
Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“O'Regan's complex yet elemental-sounding music reaches for the divine with a maturity far beyond what one expects of a composer barely thirty years of age, and his settings work on several levels, translating more than just general mood.” Charlotte Gardner, bbc.co.uk, 25th September 2008

Super Audio CD

Format:

Hybrid Multi-channel

Harmonia Mundi - HMU807490

(SACD)

$17.50

In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day.

Scattered Rhymes

Scattered Rhymes


Bryars:

Super Flumina

Dufay:

Ave regina celorum

Machaut:

Messe de Nostre Dame

Douce dame jolie, V4

O'Regan:

Scattered Rhymes

Orlando Consort

Douce dame jolie


Machaut's extraordinary Messe de Nostre Dame was not only the first complete mass setting in history, but also the first whose composer can be identified, making it emblematic of the Ars Nova style of the 14th century. In this recording, the Orlando Consort performs the mass in parallel with a work by Tarik O'Regan (born in 1978) which was inspired by it. Scattered Rhymes links two texts from the same period as Machaut's mass, one by Petrarch, the other an anonymous English poem. Both of them subtly combine earthly and divine love, while the music blends polyphonic tradition and contemporary inspiration.

Scattered Rhymes was commissioned by the Spitalfields Festival and first performed with The Joyful Company of Singers. O'Regan's Douce dame jolie was commissioned by the Orlando Consort. Super flumina by Gavin Bryars was commissioned by the National Centre for Early Music,York. Ave Regina celorum by Guillaume Dufay is sung from an edition by Gareth Curtis.

Two-time British Composer Award winner Tarik O'Regan was educated at Oxford University and completed his postgraduate studies at Cambridge. He now divides his time between Trinity College, Cambridge, where he is Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts, and New York City, where he has held the Fulbright Chester Schirmer Fellowship at Columbia University and a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard.

Gavin Bryars, born in Yorkshire, was first of all a jazz bassist and pioneer of free improvisation with Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley. His early iconic works The Sinking of the Titanic (1969) and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1971), both enjoyed major recording success. He has written extensively for early music performers such as the Hilliard Ensemble, Red Byrd and Trio Medieval, and for the Estonian National Male Choir and the Latvian Radio Choir.

The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir's repertoire ranges from Gregorian chant to 20th-century music, with special emphasis on Estonian composers like Arvo Pärt and Veljo Tormis. Many of the Choir's recordings have received the highest critical acclaim, including 5 Grammy nominations and a Grammy Award (Arvo Pärt, Da Pacem).Their conductor, Paul Hillier enjoys close creative relationships with a number of contemporary composers, most notably Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt. In 2007, he prepared Stockhausen's Stimmung with Theatre of Voices for a UK tour and subsequent recording.

Since its formation in 1988, the award-winning Orlando Consort has been hailed as the most imaginative champion of vocal music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; it now records exclusively for harmonia mundi USA.

“This collection has been programmed with considerable care. Machaut's glorious Messe de Nostre Dame forms its centre, both in terms of its musical substance and its famously provocative rhythmic and harmonic structure.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2008 *****

“Vocal treats in a meeting of old-fashioned sense and modern sensuality” Gramophone Magazine, October 2008

“The four male voices of the Orlando Consort bring vigour and tonal variety to Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame, and its tenor Mark Dobell gives a lilting account of the composer's song Douce dame jolie. Tarik O'Regan's Virelai on the same tune then makes playful, contrapuntal use of its melodies. His Scattered Rhymes, inspired by the Mass, pairs the Consort in medieval English poetry with Paul Hillier's choir in texts by Petrarch: a vivid meditation on earthly and divine love. The Consort's perceptive accounts of Du Fay's Ave Regina celorum and Gavin Bryars's Super flumina complete the picture.” The Telegraph, 10th May 2008

BBC Music Magazine

Choral & Song Choice - June 2008

BBC Music Magazine Awards 2009

Choral Finalist

Super Audio CD

Format:

Hybrid Multi-channel

Harmonia Mundi - HMU807469

(SACD)

$17.50

In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day.

Composers

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