When I was at university I enjoyed arranging and composition, however once I started teaching that was somewhat sidelined. It is only in the last couple of years that I have got back into this area of music.

These works are covered by a Creative Commons license, so please feel free to download and perform them with your choir. 

As well, it's always nice to hear how my pieces are being used, so please fill out the form below. As well, maybe even send an email or a YouTube link to your performance!

Thanks

Rob C 

rob.j.cairns@gmail.com

Please let me know what music you are using with the form below.

The Huron Carol

Writing This Piece

Again, this piece was arranged for Faculty of Music Singers. I had always wanted to come back to Silent Night and add a bit more to it. I never got around to doing that. With the Huron Carol though I did add to what I originally arranged in 1984. The second verse ("Within a lodge of broken bark ...) is the original arrangement. 

Deliver Me

Writing This Piece

“Deliver Me, Oh Lord” is based on various parts of Psalm 140. In this psalm the people are praying for what they hoped God would do to their enemies. A god coming to their aid to violently exact revenge for the wrongs that had been done to them.

This setting is styled after a piece that I performed with Deral Johnson and the UWO Faculty of Music Singers while I was at university. The piece is Jean Berger’s (Berger - French pronunciation) “Deliver Me, Oh God”. I now only have a vague recollection of this piece, and both google and YouTube searches don’t seem to turn anything up. When we performed it at university, it might have been an unpublished composition, as I believe Deral Johnson and Dr. Berger were friends.

The original version of this piece was written for SSA choir, however I have also arranged it for SATB. 

SSA & SATB Versions

The Rood

Writing This Piece

“The Rood” was written for the Metropolitan United Choristers to be sung at Tenebrae, Good Friday 2020.

Dream of the Rood

The Dream of the Rood is an ancient Anglo-Saxon narrative poem written in Old English. The full poem is recorded in the 'Vercelli Book', found in Vercelli, Italy in the city's Capitulary library. The manuscript dates from the 10th-century, however there are fragments of the poem in runic inscriptions on the Ruthwell Cross, found in the village of Ruthwell, Scotland dating from the 8th-century.

'Rood' translates from the Old English as pole, but in this context it specifically means the crucifix. The poem is told from the point of view of the tree that was hewn down to make the cross upon which Christ was crucified.

To see the entire poem you can visit Dr. Aaron Hostetter's Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry Project at the following web address:

• https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/dream-of-the-rood/

The original version of this piece was written for SSA choir, however I have also arranged it for SATB. 

SSA & SATB Versions

I Will Praise Thee

Writing This Piece

One Friday night on the way home after school a tune popped into my head. It is the tune that is used for the solo statement at the beginning of the piece. At that time I knew that I wanted to try and write something for the choir that I performed with at church. In our choir we are lucky to be able to have two parts with in each section, because of that I was able to write a female chorus verse, and a male chorus verse. The other thing I knew that I wanted to do was to write in the mixed meter. Hopefully with the mixed metre and the syncopation there is in the end the feeling of joy and praising! 

Two Amen Benedictions

At the end of our 11am service we sing an Amen as the Benediction. Here are two Amen settings that we have used. 

Ecclesia Unita Missa Brevis

(United Church Short Mass)

Writing This Piece

Ecclesia Unita Missa Brevis translates as United Church Short Mass. The United Church of Canada was founded in 1925, but the roots of each of the four founding denominations go back much further. Our roots as a Christian church go back more than 2000 years and many of our traditions farther still. In writing this work I wanted to pay homage to those deeper roots musically. Much of the writing pays tribute to the idea of chant rather than an actual specific chant, and hopefully the overall work has a mediaeval feel to it. I wanted to go back to our harmonic beginnings to emphasize the deeper roots of the United Church.

Score and Individual Movements

Kyrie   Gloria   Credo   Sanctus   Agnus Dei