Carol Composer # 4: Diana Burrell

 

Carol Composer #4: Diana Burrell

(Above image form United Music Publishing Limited)

Diana Burrell was commissioned in 1993 for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge to write a carol. She l was the the second woman to be commissioned.

For a bio of Burrell, we direct you to the webpage of United Music Publishing Limited. She studied music at Cambridge University. She went into her professional career as a violist and has many good composition for the instrument. She wrote one of her first compositions for the 1980 St Endellion Music Festival. Her first major orchestral composition, "Landscape," premiered in 1988. Burrell teaches at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 2006, the composer became the Artistic Director of Spitalfields Festival in London. That same year, she was awarded a fellowship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council at the Royal Academy of Music. She was also the artistic director of the Festival from 2012 to 2014.

Her Christmas carol for the  Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in 1993 was "Christo Paremus Cantica" which is based on an anonymous 15th Centruy text. It is available on the United Music Publishing Limited website. Some history and lyric of the text can be found at hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com.

 

Burrell's Christmas works are not many, but they include the recent "Green Groweth the Holly" (2019) which was included in a recording by Choirs of St Catharine's College, Cambridge in 2020 for their album Alpha & O: Music for Advent & Christmas on Resonus Limited.

"Creator of the Stars of Night" (1989) has been recorded by the Choir Goneville & Caius College, Cambridge in their Into this World, This Day did Come: Carols: Contemporary and Medieval.

I was unable to find a video of "Come and See the Christ Child" (1982) for unison choir and piano.

Most of her sacred music composition are for choir: "Alleluia" (SATB choir), "Ave Verum Corpus" (SATB choir), "Bless the Lord Oh my Soul" (2021),  "Benedicam Dominum" (SSATB and organ), "Hymn to Wisdom" (SATB choir)(1989), Magnificat/Nunc (for treble voices and piano)(1996), Michael's Mass (for unison voice and piano)(1997), Missa Brevis (1997), and Missa Sancte Endeliente (1980), and "Grant we Beseech thee".

Burrell also has a 1986 piece call "Angelus":

as well as a 1987 piece called "Archangel":

as well as a 1992 piece called "Resurrection":

Also by Burrell is "Come Holy Ghost, Our Souls Inspire" (1993), "Gaelic Blessing" (2014), "Pentecost" (2017), "Sing Alleluia forth in duteous Praise" (2018),and The St Pancras Evening Canticles: Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (2005).

For further works by Burrell, see United Music Publishing Limited's webpage and she also has a YouTube channel.

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