• About
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions reviewed on 5:4
    • Composer Map
    • Albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
  • The Dialogues
  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
    • The Isolation Mixtapes
    • Mystery Mixtapes
    • Podcasts
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Submission Contact Form
5:4
Tag:

choir

  • Advent Calendar

    Onutė Narbutaitė – Vasara

    by 5:4 December 10, 2022 • 05:00
    December 10, 2022 • 05:00

    Today’s featured work is one for the southern hemisphere, now entering its warmest months of the year. Composed in 1991, Lithuanian composer Onutė Narbutaitė‘s Vasara is a miniature choral homage to the season of summer. The words, written by the composer, have a nostalgic flavour, looking back at the experiences…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent Calendar

    Tõnis Kaumann – Ave Maria

    by 5:4 December 8, 2022 • 05:00
    December 8, 2022 • 05:00

    For those of a Catholic persuasion, today is one of the days devoted to Mary in the liturgical calendar, so it’s as good a time as any to feature in my Advent Calendar a setting of Ave Maria by Estonian composer Tõnis Kaumann. A few years ago i explored Kaumann’s…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Premières

    Proms 2022: Cheryl Frances-Hoad – Your Servant, Elizabeth (World Première)

    by 5:4 July 23, 2022 • 12:54
    July 23, 2022 • 12:54

    Last night’s Prom was a monarchist’s paradise, waxing lyrical in the Queen’s platinum jubilee year with an evening of music composed for royal occasions. Nestling among all the sonic bowing and scraping and forelock-tugging from the usual early 20th century shower was a short new choral work from Cheryl Frances-Hoad,…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    New Estonian Chamber / Choral / Orchestral Music

    by 5:4 May 16, 2022 • 16:29
    May 16, 2022 • 16:29

    As an appendix to my coverage of this year’s Estonian Music Days, i want to highlight three new anthologies of Estonian contemporary music. Focusing on chamber, choral and orchestral music respectively, and featuring a diverse collection of ensembles and vocal groups, they complement and expand upon a previous series of…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsPremières

    Estonian Music Days 2022 (Part 2)

    by 5:4 May 2, 2022 • 05:00
    May 2, 2022 • 05:00

    The smallest-scale events at this year’s Estonian Music Days were a pair of chamber concerts at each end of the festival. Irina Zahharenkova’s keyboard recital at the Arvo Pärt Centre encompassed extremes of musical invention. The most egregious were two works dating from the early 1990s by a Russian guitarist…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsPremières

    Dark Music Days 2022 (Part 1)

    by 5:4 March 11, 2022 • 13:15
    March 11, 2022 • 13:15

    Postponed from its usual position in late January to early March due to last-minute Covid restriction shenanigans, Iceland’s Dark Music Days festival was therefore not quite so dark as usual. All the same, it was hardly the Light Music Days, and in any case Mother Nature was seemingly more determined…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Lent Series

    Aftab Darvishi – And the world stopped, lacking you…

    by 5:4 March 2, 2022 • 05:00
    March 2, 2022 • 05:00

    It’s Ash Wednesday, the traditional first day of Lent, so it’s time for my annual 5:4 Lent Series. Last year, i took nature as my theme as something of an antidote to the fact that, at the time, being able to travel and explore the natural world was difficult if…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Concerts

    Symphony Hall, Birmingham: African Sanctus

    by 5:4 January 18, 2022 • 11:57
    January 18, 2022 • 11:57

    i wish i could remember how i first came into contact with African Sanctus. All i can be certain of is that it was at least 25 years ago, as i took part in a performance of the piece (being in charge of the tape part) given by Coventry Philharmonic…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Justė Janulytė – Now I’m Nowhere (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 23, 2021 • 05:00
    December 23, 2021 • 05:00

    A couple of days ago we crossed the threshold into winter, so for both today’s and tomorrow’s Advent Calendar pieces i’m exploring music that either invokes or evokes the cold. Invocation first, in the form of Now I’m Nowhere, a work for male voices by Lithuanian composer Justė Janulytė. Janulytė…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent Calendar

    Jakob & Nathan Tulve – Antiphon: Angeli, Archangeli & Psalm 138

    by 5:4 December 20, 2021 • 05:00
    December 20, 2021 • 05:00

    For today’s Advent Calendar piece i’m turning to part of a concert given by the choir Vox Clamantis. Originally formed to explore Gregorian chant, while the choir’s repertoire now encompasses ancient and modern, one of the features of their concerts is the way they’re structured as what could be called…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Helena Tulve – Nächtliche Gesänge (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 14, 2021 • 05:00
    December 14, 2021 • 05:00

    Behind today’s Advent Calendar door is one of the most stunning choral works i’ve heard in the last few years. i was fortunate enough to experience the first performance of Helena Tulve’s Nächtliche Gesänge [Night Songs] at the World Music Days in 2019. The two songs use texts from German…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent Calendar

    Judith Bingham – Evening Canticles, Collegium Regale

    by 5:4 December 9, 2021 • 05:00
    December 9, 2021 • 05:00

    Today’s Advent Calendar offering is an unusual setting of the familiar evening canticles by British composer Judith Bingham. The Anglican service of Choral Evensong is one of the driest and dustiest places for new music to exist in, but whereas the majority of new works written for it fully conform…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    John Cage – Variations I for Stephen Montague (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 4, 2021 • 05:00
    December 4, 2021 • 05:00

    Something of an oddity behind today’s Advent Calendar door, and a real rarity too. Some decades ago, US composer Stephen Montague, who had developed a close relationship with John Cage, had asked Cage for a piano piece. Nothing came of this until 1990 when, in Montague’s words, He borrowed a…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Advent CalendarPremières

    Gerta Raidma – je suis (World Première)

    by 5:4 December 3, 2021 • 05:00
    December 3, 2021 • 05:00

    Today’s Advent Calendar featured work is a choral piece i’ve returned to many, many times since first hearing it in 2018, at the Estonian Music Days. Gerta Raidma‘s je suis sets a text of her own devising, words that are achingly personal and intimate, mingling fragility and disorientation with faint…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • FestivalsPremières

    Proms 2021: Bernard Hughes – Birdchant; Nico Muhly – A New Flame (after Sweelinck); Shiva Feshareki – Aetherworld (World Premières)

    by 5:4 August 23, 2021 • 17:21
    August 23, 2021 • 17:21

    More Proms premières, more demands that composers must ‘respond’ to existing music. Perhaps by now the Proms organisers regard this approach as an integral, even defining, part of its commissioning strategy, but it demonstrates a complete lack of faith and trust in composers to forge their own unique conceptions from…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir – music by Schnittke and Pärt; Latvian Radio Choir – Ramon Humet: Light

    by 5:4 July 21, 2021 • 17:43
    July 21, 2021 • 17:43

    This week i’ve been spending time with a couple of new albums that could each be described as being “devotional”. By that i don’t simply mean ‘religious’, although both of them are fundamentally informed by that attitude, one explicitly, the other implicitly. Listening to them has been a thought-provoking experience,…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Thomas Simaku – La Leggiadra Luna

    by 5:4 March 17, 2021 • 05:00
    March 17, 2021 • 05:00

    My nature-themed Lent Series finally gets to explore the night in La Leggiadra Luna by Albanian composer Thomas Simaku. A choral work composed in 2017, its text is an Italian translation (by Salvatore Quasimodo) of a fragment by the Greek poet Sappho. The words articulate a short reverie marvelling at the…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • Lent SeriesPremières

    Evelin Seppar – Seesama meri (World Première)

    by 5:4 March 1, 2021 • 05:00
    March 1, 2021 • 05:00

    The next piece i’m exploring in this year’s nature-themed Lent Series is a vocal work by Estonian composer Evelin Seppar. Pretty much all of my experience with Seppar’s music thus far has been vocal: Поля ли мои, поля (Fields, Oh My Fields) made a strong impression at the 2017 Estonian…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    SWR Vokalensemble – Baltikum

    by 5:4 December 22, 2020 • 11:32
    December 22, 2020 • 11:32

    For the last six years, the SWR Vokalensemble and conductor Marcus Creed have been on a systematic journey through choral music from all points of the globe. It’s a journey i wasn’t aware of until earlier this year, when a large box set unexpectedly arrived at my door, ambitiously titled…

    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • CD/Digital releases

    Tõnu Kõrvits – You Are Light and Morning

    by 5:4 December 14, 2020 • 11:28
    December 14, 2020 • 11:28

    As in most countries, Estonian contemporary music has its share of conservatives (more) and radicals (fewer), but one composer in particular tends to flit between the two. At first listen, many would probably place Tõnu Kõrvits‘ music firmly in the conservative camp. He is, without a doubt, the country’s most…

    Read more
    1 FacebookTwitterPinterestRedditEmail
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • …
  • 6

Join 2,139 other subscribers.

Nils Henrik Asheim: Lydkilder Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices Music Beyond Airports: appraising ambient music Simon Cummings | 間 Studies vol. 6

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Rss
  • Mixcloud
Footer Logo

© 2008-2023 Simon Cummings

5:4
  • About
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions reviewed on 5:4
    • Composer Map
    • Albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
    • Festivals reviewed on 5:4
    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
  • The Dialogues
  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
    • The Isolation Mixtapes
    • Mystery Mixtapes
    • Podcasts
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Submission Contact Form