Autumn Concert ~ 2011
 
Will ToddWill Todd: Mass in Blue

An upbeat jazz setting of the latin mass text for soprano, SATB chorus and jazz ensemble or trio.

Listen to an audio clip of the Kyrie section.

Duration: 40 minutes.
Commissioned by Hertfordshire Chorus.

Will Todd's Mass in Blue, an upbeat setting of the latin mass, is a brilliant blend of driving jazz grooves and clear, strong, choral writing against which the solo piano and solo soprano voice weave and blend in a delightful aural tapestry.

The work reflects not only the composer's love of jazz music and his admiration of jazz performers, but also his own experience as an improviser. Mass in Blue was commissioned by David Temple and the Hertfordshire Chorus in 2003 and premiered in July 2003 under the title "Jazz Mass" at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, with soprano Bethany Halliday, the Blue Planet Orchestra, Will Todd on piano and conducted by David Temple.

Subsequently revised and retitled for performances in 2004 at the Barbican Centre in London and in Durham Cathedral, by 2007 it had received almost 50 performances in the UK, Europe and beyond. It has firmly entered the choral repertoire and has been enjoyed by choirs young and old, large and small. Mass in Blue has been recorded twice - by Hertfordshire Chorus on their own label, and more recently by the Vasari Singers for Signum Classics.

Programme notes courtesy of Will Todd's website.

Read about Will Todd.

This will be DCU's first performance of Will Todd's Mass in Blue.
John RutterRutter: Feel the Spirit

The heritage of the African-American spiritual has fired the imagination of composers, performers, and audiences for more than a hundred years.

Each generation has produced interpretations of many kinds, yet, curiously, rather few composers have combined the resources of soloist, choir, and orchestra.

John Rutter was inspired by the vocal artistry of Melanie Marshall to build a set of spirituals crafted to her personal style, partnered by choir, with the orchestra to supply an extra dimension of colour and emotional depth.

This cycle of seven spirituals arranged in the composer's inimitable style for soprano soloist, choir and orchestra, dates from 2001:

  1. Joshua fit the battle of Jericho
  2. Steal away
  3. I got a robe
  4. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
  5. Ev'ry time I feel the spirit
  6. Deep river
  7. When the saints go marching in

Feel the Spirit received its concert première in Carnegie Hall in June 2001.

Programme Notes courtesy of Louise Luegner.

Read about John Rutter, CBE.

John Rutter studied music at Clare College, Cambridge. His original works and clever arrangements of familiar themes are often sung in churches and schools.

Particularly well known are his Gloria, The Nativity Carol and Shepherd's Pipe Carol.

DCU last sang Rutter's Feel the Spirit on 23rd. April, 2005.