My choral works range from religious to secular, from Christian to pre-Hindu...
Here are recordings of four favorites:
"Drum Taps: Nine Poems on Themes of War" is a setting of some of Walt Whitman's civil war poems interspersed with verses from other parts of the world in which the US has been involved in war. It is scored for SATB soloists, mixed choir and full orchestra and lasts about an hour.
Fashion a Hymn in the Mouth is a setting for mixed choir and piano soloist of excerpts from a Hymn from the Rig Veda, the 3500 year old sacred texts from India. The images in this prayer for rain are those of famers and herders everywhere- fields, animals, the awesome forces of nature- and the texts are wonderfully evocative: “Fashion a hymn in the mouth, expand like the cloud, sing a song of praise….” The musical setting is dramatic, moving from despair to questioning divine intentions to ecstatic, ritual prayer.
The Godmaking of the Skies and the Earth
Hebrew scholar Harris Lenowitz' English translation of "Priestly Genesis" was an astonishing discovery for me in his book: Origins: Creation Myths of the Eastern Mediterranean." Earthy and full of surprises, it demanded musical setting. Lenowitz explained to me over the phone that he had sought to replicate in English the folk-like quality of the original ancient Hebrew- before it received its glorious "King James" and later "modern" renditions. The Godmaking of the Skies and the Earth is an "experiment" then, in theology, translation and music- a merging of the ancient and the modern, the solemn and the joyous, the earthly and the divine.
Officium Pastorum (The Office of the Shepherds) is a 20 minute Christmas cantata for mixed choir, soloists and brass quintet. The text is from a late medieval Nativity play, originally performed in church on Christmas morning, and is sung by antiphonal choirs in both Latin and English. The form follows Bach as this was written on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of his birth. The commission specified brass quintet and so Gabrieli is also an influence, as is Poulenc (!) for the more "lively" sections of the piece. All the music is derived from the great Lutheran Christmas chorale Vom Himmel hoch.- from the mysterious opening phrases to the cheerful shepherds' song to the fugal fifth movement which concludes the first half. In good Bach fashion, the audience joins in singing the full chorale along with the performers in the final movement. The ten movements are below listed as OP 01-OP 10.