A Few Christmas Works included in Choir of Christ's College, Cambridge Recording of Annabel Rooney Choral Music

 

A Few Christmas Works included in Choir of Christ's College, Cambridge Recording of Annabel Rooney Choral Music

‘Like to a flower’ is the second album dedicated to the music of Annabel Rooney, following the success of ‘As a seed bursts forth’, released in 2019. These beautiful and approachable settings of traditional texts bring a fresh and original voice to the growing repertoire of sacred choral music by female composers. 

The disc opens with a ‘mini’ Evensong: Introit; Preces; Psalm; Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis; Responses and Anthem, together with a Mass, anthems, and motets for all the seasons of the church’s year.

Annabel Rooney read music at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and continued her studies in Cambridge with postgraduate research on eighteenth-century opera. Rooney turned to composition comparatively late, when her youngest child was starting school, mostly writing choral music.

Her music has been performed by many choirs in the UK and overseas, including Exeter and Ely Cathedrals, Bath Abbey, York Minster, the Chapel Royal, and King’s Voices and broadcast on Choral Evensong on Radio 3. Her music is published by Selah, and Oxford University Press, notably in the ‘Breath of Song’ anthology of music by women composers.

Editor's note: Though not a Christmas album, this recording contains the winter piece "'Tis  winter now," and the Christmas piece "Love Came Down at Christmas."

https://www.regent-records.co.uk/product/like-to-a-flower-choral-music-by-annabel-rooney/

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Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum releases "Sweet was the Song" on Regent

 

Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum releases "Sweet was the Song" on Regent

Sweet Was the Song: Christmas at Tewkesbury Abbey, Tewkesbury Abbey Scola Cantorum, Simon Bell

Sweet was the Song is a collection of festive repertoire featuring many first recordings of new music from the 21st century.

Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum is the choir of choristers and lay clerks that sings the weekday services of Choral Evensong in the Abbey during school term time. 

In 2006, Dean Close Preparatory School became the choir school for the choristers of Schola Cantorum, following the closure of the former Abbey School in Tewkesbury. Every year since then, the Dean Close Schools have commissioned a new Christmas carol, all of which have been performed by the Schola Cantorum and the Senior School’s Chapel Choir at their respective carol services. 

On this album, nine of these commissioned works are featured, forming the backbone of the programme, with first recordings of works by Alexander L’Estrange, Owain Park, Kerensa Briggs, Ben Ponniah, Malcolm Archer, Carleton Etherington, and Neil Cox.

Recorded in the glorious acoustic of Tewkesbury Abbey the recording also features two organ solo pieces from David Bednall and George Baker, played by Carleton Etherington.

https://www.regent-records.co.uk/product/sweet-was-the-song/