Dusk Songs: Music for Compline

Reviews

Choir & Organ
5/5 stars

Not every young composer has the opportunity to have their music performed alongside an established older generation and survive the experience. Kerry Andrew emerges unscathed. Dusk Songs is a setting of 12 liturgical texts for Compline. Influenced by world music and non-Western vocal techniques, she is able to create a meditative mood for the ending of the day. Andrew's flowing vocal lines and her deep feeling for text presage the emergence of a considerable talent.

Moody's Canticum canticorum are three atmospheric settings influenced by Eastern Orthodox liturgical chant that maintains the reflective spirit of the CD. MacMillan's evocative A Child's Prayer and Christus Vincit touch the senses to bring a radiant ending to this inspirational programme. The Ebor Singers are magnificent throughout. I can't wait to hear more from this young group.
Shirley Ratcliffe

Choir Schools Today

The purity and youthful freshness of The Ebor Singers suits these fantastic choral works very well indeed. Please record more.

Church Music Quarterly
(recommended release)

A delightful release from The Ebor Singers.
...an intoxicatingly relaxed ambience.
Will Dawes

York Evening Press
4 stars

Considering the anti-Christian ethos in the air these days, it is remarkable - and heartening - that so many younger composers are still writing for the church. There are two with University of York connections on this disc, Kerry Andrew and Ivan Moody.  Andrew responded to an Ebor Singers commission for Anglican compline last year with 12 Dusk Songs, the disc's title work. Beautifully tailored to voices, the pieces are mainly tranquil. Exceptions include the vivid Gloria in the Nunc Dimittis and the controlled urgency of Hail, Gladdening Light. Moody's Orthodox leanings inspire three, more traditional, Latin settings from the Song of Songs, with warm, almost fruity, harmony well suited to the text. James MacMillan's fertile Catholic faith provides two anthems in prayerful, astringent vein, but exultant at the close of Christus Vincit.

The Ebor Singers under Paul Gameson adapt fluently throughout.
Martin Dreyer

Listen to Dusk Songs Listen to Dusk Songs. Track listing and disk information is also available. [Listen]

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