Anniversary Commissions

David Wordsworth has been Musical Director of the Addison Group of Singers for ten years. To celebrate this anniversary, in 2005/06 we commissioned a series of choral works - the 'Anniversary Commissions' - from

Gavin Bryars
William Bolcom
Howard Skempton
Jill Jarman
Cecilia McDowall

The Addison Singers wish to thank the N.Smith Charitable Settlement, the Robert Kiln Charitable Trust and the Kenneth Leighton Trust for their generous donations, and choir members for their donations and fundraising which are making these commissions possible.

Gavin Bryars

'A la dolce ombra de le belle frondi' was premiered by the Chamber Choir at the AGS concert on 31 March 2007.

Gavin Bryars started his career from an experimental position rare in British music and has continued to chart a radical course while attracting an international following. Nonetheless, he has remained steadfastly beyond the establishment - and always several degrees ahead of it.

His two iconic pieces 'The Sinking of the Titanic' and 'Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet' have been hugely successful on CD and in concert, attracting a new audience that would normally take fright from something called 'new music' Amongst his works are three operas - 'Medea' (produced by Robert Wilson in France in 1984), 'Dr Ox's Experiment' (ENO 1988) and 'G' (libretto by Blake Morrison, Mainz (2002).
Bryars has also written a Cello Concerto for Julian Lloyd Webber, a large body of chamber music and has had a long and close association with the Hilliard Ensemble, for whom he has written extensively. Most recently Bryars wrote the music for BIPED for Merce Cunningham, further dance pieces for Carolyn Carlson, a Double Bass Concerto for the BBC and 'From Egil's Saga' for the Eastern Orchestral Board. His music is widely recorded, not least on his own label - GB records.

David Wordsworth writes:
"For six years I worked for Schott, who publish the music of Gavin Bryars. Gavin and I come from the same area of the country (East Yorkshire). We have a similar sense of humour, an ironic outlook on life and getting to know his music is something for which I will always be grateful. Underneath the readiness to deflate any pomposity and laugh not only at others but more frequently at himself is a genuinely remarkable artist and to my mind one of the most individual composers working today. Some years ago the Oratorio Choir performed his work 'On Photography' which they enjoyed very much and the Chamber Choir sang his tricky unaccompanied piece 'And so ended Kant's travelling...' I've done several of Gavin's other choral pieces and have always admired not only his direct way of setting words, but the care that he takes in selecting his texts in the first place. At the time of writing the piece is still being written - but I know it will be worth waiting for!"

For more information on Gavin Bryars see www.gavinbryars.com

William Bolcom

Two Meditations on Poems of George Herbert
1. Vertue
2. Love
To David Wordsworth in friendship

Premiered by the Oratorio Choir in July 2006.

The American composer and pianist William Bolcom (1938-) entered university at 11 and later continued his studies with Milhaud and Messiaen. His extensive catalogue covers all musical forms and amongst his most recent works are two operas commissioned by the Chicago Lyric Opera - 'A View from the Bridge' (later staged by the Met in New York) and 'The Wedding', a 7th Symphony premiered by James Levine at The Carnegie Hall and an 11th String Quartet. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for his 'Twelve New Etudes' for piano, and his magnum opus, a monumental setting of Blake's 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' won more Grammy' awards than any other classical CD has ever done before, at a ceremony earlier this year. The 'Songs of Innocence' together with some chamber music and songs with piano are available on CD (Naxos). Bolcom is active as a performer and has a long-standing duo with his wife the mezzo soprano Joan Morris.

David Wordsworth writes:
"William Bolcom, Joan Morris and I have been friends for a long time and when I went to Michigan to stay with them last year I casually mentioned that the AS were in the process of commissioning new pieces for 2006, adding that the commission fees were very low! I thought Bill rather had his hands full, being in the middle of a major choral symphony for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and about to start work on a set of Lorca songs for Placido Domingo, but when he said 'find me some poems that I might like' I thought there was a glimmer! Not long after I returned to the UK an envelope arrived with the two settings of George Herbert written especially for The Addison Singers. I've always loved the metaphysical poets and although Herbert's work has attracted many English composers I couldn't think of any by American composers and thought it would be interesting to see what would happen! A new piece from such a busy international composer is a more than worthy addition to our list of premieres."

For more information on William Bolcom see www.bolcomandmorris.com

Howard Skempton

Howard Skempton has written a short unaccompanied piece entitled The Great Breath for the Chamber Choir, which had its first performance at the spring classical concert on 25 March 2006.

Howard Skempton uses a musical language of great simplicity. Unaffected by compositional trends he has written in many musical genres - a large collection of solo pieces for piano or accordion (Skempton's own instrument) form what the composer calls the 'central nervous system' of his work. Many of his works have been recorded including the hugely successful 'Lento' by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Over the past few years Skempton has been concentrating on choral and vocal music with pieces written for the BBC Singers, Belfast Philharmonic Society, and a number of major cathedral choirs. Skempton's recent string quartet 'Tendrils' recently won both the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize and British Composer Award Prize for the best piece of chamber music of 2004/5.

Howard Skempton is a featured composer in 2006/07.

Jill Jarman

Jill Jarman has composed The Listening Tree for the Oratorio Choir and the Bernardi String Orchestra, and it was performed at the spring classical concert on 25 March 2006.

"The Listening Tree tells of a tree that hears all our troubles, finds remedies for our ills, has much of life’s diverse creatures at its feet, is a source for most foods and gives us the very air we breathe. By now you have realised that the tree is indeed a metaphor for the world’s rainforests.

"The piece is continuous yet falls naturally into three sections. After an introduction with real audio of an indigenous (rainforest region) people’s chant (Music of Indonesia, Volume 4: music of Nias and North Sumatra, track 03: Music of the Ono Niha: and drumming (ibid, track o8: Music of the Toba), the first section tells of the tree and leaves us with a feeling of hope. A string interlude gives us a glimpse of things to come; angular, discordant motifs leave a feeling of unease as the second section bursts through. Vocal lines clamour for attention over a fast ostinato cello and bass, as the text alludes to the rainforest’s destruction. The third section brings a beautiful, yet melancholic melody, telling us “spirit of creatures take to the sky, asking us why?” The piece ends with circularity, as the theme from section one repeats, but this time the text is in the past tense.

"My research for this piece took me to the British Library sound archives, listening to audio of many rainforest peoples’ music. An overriding feature from these cultural gems has been the musical ‘scales’ used by rainforest dwellers from different parts of the world: a five-note diatonic scale, which is incorporated in this piece, especially the theme in section 3.

"A musical feature of the 'Bosavi' music is that which they call 'lift-up-and-over-sounding'. (See Audio CD notes by Dr Steven Feld, from Voices of the rainforest). Every sound, they believe, is part of an on-going landscape as there are no single sounds in the rainforest, rather multiple textures. This idea is incorporated in the bridge of section one, where several vocal lines ‘lift up and over’ each other, creating a layered texture.

"The Listening Tree is a journey: of music, nature and cultures. Yet overall it is a symbiotic experience – that of our humanity and the world in which we live."

Cecilia McDowall

The first of the Anniversary Commissions to be performed, was by Cecilia McDowall, who lives in Chiswick. The première performance of her new carol, The Angels for the Nativity, was given by the Oratorio Choir at the concert on Saturday 10 December 2005. A reviewer wrote "An angular work, with some tricky fluid cross rhythms and at times an austere sound, it was convincingly performed". (Brentford, Chiswick and Isleworth Times, 6 January 2006). It was well received by the audience, and performed a second time at the end of the concert.

The Oratorio Choir had performed her beautiful work 'Ave Maris Stella' in December 2004. As both choir and audience so enjoyed this, David Wordsworth asked Cecilia McDowall if she would consider writing a short piece for the Addison Singers. We are lucky that she readily agreed; her reputation as a composer of rewarding and idiomatic choral pieces has grown enormously over the past few years and her music is sung and played all over the world.

For more information on Cecilia McDowall see www.ceciliamcdowall.co.uk