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James WHITBOURN Living Voices Son of God Mass • Requiem canticorum Jeremy Powell, Soprano saxophone • Ken Cowan, Organ Westminster Williamson Voices • James Jordan

James Whitbourn and James Jordan Photo: Jessi Franko

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James Whitbourn (b. 1963): Living Voices • Son of God Mass • Requiem canticorum James Jordan Give us the wings of faith • Winter’s Wait • A brief story of Peter Abelard A Prayer from South Africa • All shall be Amen and Alleluia James Jordan is recognized and praised from many quarters in the musical world as one of America’s pre-eminent conductors, writers and innovators in choral music. Music performance builds into its experience, we hope, He has been described as a “visionary” by The Choral Journal. His career and both journey and story. For me and for the Westminster publications have been devoted to innovative educational changes in the choral art Williamson Voices, the experience of recording Living that have been embraced around the world. A master teacher, he is a prolific writer Voices and taking the journey that James Whitbourn’s on the subjects of the philosophy of music making and choral teaching. He is the music inspires has been both life changing and life author of thirty major textbooks and DVDs and editor for several choral series. His affirming. choral conducting book, Evoking Sound, was cited as one of the Choral Journal’s It has been almost ten years since I first came in six “must read” books. James Jordan teaches and conducts at Westminster Choir contact with Whitbourn’s music. Its allure, for me as a College of Rider University where he is Professor and Senior Conductor. In demand Photo: Alison Whitbourn conductor and for my singers, is its deep honesty, as a clinician, he has served as artist-in-residence for many leading institutions and authenticity, and its ability in a very direct and ensembles in the United States. He also serves on panels for The National meaningful music language to communicate life’s truths Endowment of the Arts and is director of the Westminster Conducting Institute, one in a way that its very singing changes the way we live. of the leading programs for conducting study in the United States. His books and The Son of God Mass and Requiem canticorum, the professional activities are detailed on www.evokingsound.com and two anchor pieces on this recording, provide for the listener, www.giamusic.com/bios/james-jordan. I believe, deep spiritual and human journeys into not only life and living, but the role of loss and remembrance in the human experience. The textures and sound palettes in these Westminster Choir College works leave unmistakable impressions in our ears. Likewise, the stunningly beautiful Give us the wings of faith Westminster Choir College is a centre for music study located in the heart of Princeton, New Jersey. It is a division combines the most intimate of musical textures to reveal a of Rider University’s Westminster College of the Arts. The Choir College is a four-year music college and graduate glimpse into the role of belief in our lives. All of the works school that prepares men and women for careers as music leaders in schools, universities, churches and professional on this recording took us on profound journeys, and we and community organizations. Renowned for its tradition of choral excellence, in addition to the Westminster believe that you will hear us and our journeys as you listen Williamson Voices, the College has eight major choirs, including the 150-voice Westminster Symphonic Choir, to not only the choir, but the artistry of my colleagues. It has which has performed and recorded with virtually all of the major orchestras and conductors of our time. Rider been our mission to bring this significant choral music to University, a private coeducational university with campuses in Lawrenceville and Princeton, New Jersey, you in a deeply meaningful way. emphasizes purposeful connections between academic study and education for the professions. Further details on The great teacher of the twentieth century, Nadia www.rider.edu/wcc. Boulanger said, “All that we know by heart enriches us and helps us find ourselves.” This recording and the music on it have allowed us to see ourselves a bit more clearly and to see the “insides” of life’s experiences. We feel fulfilled and changed by the experience of James Whitbourn’s music. We hope you hear that experience in what we have tried to capture here. James Whitbourn has an international reputation as a composer of choral music and of music for television James Jordan films and concert hall. After studying music at Professor of Conducting and Senior Conductor, Magdalen College, Oxford University, he began his Westminster Choir College of Rider University career in the BBC, a background which helped shape his

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Westminster Williamson Voices compositional style with its direct connection with The use of the soprano saxophone stems from a performers and audiences worldwide. His largest-scale vigil service for war-torn Bosnia, held a few years Soprano Alto Tenor Bass choral work, Annelies, sets words from The Diary of earlier, for which I had written some short, mantra-like Shannon Aloise Lauren Delfing Ryan Cassel Giancarlo D’Elia Anne Frank, and was premièred in its orchestral scoring phrases, sung first by the choir and then by the whole Misha Barker Elizabeth Frasciello Roger Erickson Jacob Ezzo by Leonard Slatkin at London’s Cadogan Hall and in the congregation, over which the saxophonist John Harle Jaclyn Beardsley Guisella Houlahan Cheong Kim Corey Everly chamber version by violinist Daniel Hope. His dance improvised. I returned to this sound world when writing Bretta Cline Lauren Kenworthy Daniel Halbstein John Floyd score Luminosity was received with wide critical Son of God Mass. Michelle Di Bona Jurae Kim William Roslak Ryan John acclaim and recorded on his first Naxos CD (8.572103). Winter’s Wait was written for the choir of King’s Samantha Lax Kristen Kozub Michael Smith T. Quinn Kimball Television work includes the lush orchestral score for College Cambridge and is a setting of a modern poem by Samantha Scully Maya Mapuana Jared Slaymaker Matthew Robertson the BBC series Son of God, on which the Son of God Robert Tear, a close friend whose death came just days Dorothy Shrader Melissa Richardson Joshua Stell Andrew Skitko Mass is based. Whitbourn also has a profile as a choral before the present recording took place. Its melody Jessica Williams Laine Schubert Robert Stubbs Louis Spinelli and orchestral conductor and has a close association shares its tonality with Peter Abelard’s beautiful hymn O Holly Scovell Ben Sutley with Westminster Choir College, where he has been quanta qualia, on which A brief story of Peter Abelard is Jonathan Stecker Ryan Wilson Visiting Artist and a Composer-in-Residence. based, but it bursts into the major for the final stanza. Give us the wings of faith is a setting of Isaac Since its founding in 2003 Composer’s note Watts’s exquisite poem originally written in the first the Westminster Williamson person, ‘Give me the wings of faith to rise,’ and was Voices has quickly Son of God Mass has its genesis in visual imagery. Its commissioned by the BBC. The poem has a visionary established itself as a voice seminal themes were composed in response to a series quality to it, but expressed in a direct way. of composers of our time, of strong images – sweeping vistas and astonishing A brief story of Peter Abelard tells the story through and it has been acclaimed for landscapes of the Holy Land – shot for a series of fine music of the life and death of Peter Abelard, the its creative programming documentary films made by the BBC between 2000 and medieval philosopher, poet and musician, born in and collaborations with 2001. After completing the orchestral score for the France in 1079. The work is a series of variations on his other art forms. Critics have films, I decided to use the music as the basis of a new hymn tune O quanta qualia, each of which paints an described the Westminster choral Mass setting. Re-working music in the context of episode of Abelard’s life, each identified in the score. Williamson Voices as an a Mass setting is an idea which flourished during the Abelard taught at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, ensemble of “intimate and Renaissance, when the so-called “parody Mass” was a lodging with Canon Fulbert, who admired his work. In forceful choral artistry,” common device for composers such as Palestrina and time, he also became tutor to Fulbert’s beautiful with tone that is as Sheppard – who used secular songs as well as sacred seventeen-year-old niece, Heloïse. Abelard and Heloïse “controlled and silken in motets as the basis of their parody Masses. In this way, began a passionate love affair (Dance of Peter and sustained phrases as they are the Son of God Mass is a modern-day parody Mass. Heloïse), which resulted in a son, Astrolabe. For the vibrantly sonorous in The scoring of the Mass is for choir, organ and sake of Abelard’s position, they married secretly, and extroverted material” and soprano saxophone and was written to be performed Canon Fulbert was present at their marriage. But Fulbert “without peer.” The choir either liturgically or as a concert piece. Because – with later reacted furiously to news that Abelard had sent has given premières of more the exception of the Kyrie and Gloria – movements of Heloïse to a convent, believing that he had abandoned than thirty choral works, liturgical Mass settings are not intended to be heard one her in favour of his own career. In revenge, he had including three major works by British composer James Whitbourn: the chamber version of Annelies: The Anne after the other, I added linking meditative movements Abelard castrated (Revenge of Canon Fulbert). After his Frank Oratorio; Luminosity, a work for triple choir, dancers, viola solo, organ and tanpura and Requiem that represent the progression of the liturgy and quote mutilation, Abelard became a monk, and he and Heloïse canticorum, featured on this recording. The choir made its Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center debut in 2011. One of fragments from it. The liturgical movements (the remained constant correspondents for the remainder of several leading ensembles at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, the choir is composed of students Ordinary of the Mass) are scored for choir and organ, his life. He composed a hymn-book for Heloïse, who by selected by audition. with the soprano saxophone added for the linking then was Abbess of the convent of the Paraclete. Among movements. the hymns was a visionary poem of the New Jerusalem,

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set to a beautiful melody in the Dorian mode, O quanta of the Transfiguration and the dropping of the atomic Jeremy Powell qualia. On his death in 1142, Abelard’s remains were bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The second was a taken to the Paraclete at Heloïse’s request, and her body commemoration of the wounded Christ, an embodiment Jeremy Powell is a graduate of the Jazz & Contemporary Music program was later laid to rest in the same tomb. Finally, their of the hurts and pains borne by human beings. Its text is at New School University and has played with such world-renowned remains were taken to Paris and in 1817 they were a group of Latin songs, which can loosely be called jazz artists as Larry Coryell, Jeff Berlin, and Kenny Drew Jr. He was a buried together in one sepulchre (In Paradisum). A brief canticles, that form a piece to commemorate those who featured performer at the 2003 John Coltrane Festival in Hollywood. In story of Peter Abelard was commissioned by Sarah are dead and to comfort those who are bereaved. The 2010 he was named “Best Saxophonist” by Creative Loafing’s 2010 Field and Simon Lepper for performance on alto work forms a companion piece to the Son of God Mass Best of the Bay awards. He currently resides in Tampa, Florida, where saxophone and piano. A new scoring for soprano and can be performed as a stand-alone work, but its he plays and teaches music full time. Since 2005, Jeremy Powell has saxophone and organ has been made for the performers movements can also intertwine with those of the Son of been a frequent collaborator with the Westminster Williamson on this disc, Jeremy Powell and Ken Cowan. God Mass in a designated sequence to form a full Voices and James Jordan, with whom he gave the première of James A Prayer from South Africa is a concise setting of a Requiem Mass. Whitbourn’s Requiem canticorum and also gave the New York première prayer by Alan Paton (1903-88), the South African anti- There are several other associations embodied of the piece at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 2011. Further details apartheid activist and writer. The music was within the music, the most obvious of which is the use on www.jeremy-powell.com. commissioned by a former Canon of Cape Town of a familiar plainsong melody that forms the ancient Cathedral, Chris Chivers. The musical language reflects Introit from the Mass for the Dead. It is the same Ken Cowan a harmonic style impressed upon me during my own melody used by Duruflé in his beautiful and evocative visits to South Africa. Requiem, and a melody that has been heard and sung A native of Thorold, Ontario, Canada, Ken Cowan received his Bachelor of Music from the Living Voices was first commissioned by the BBC through many centuries. The scoring of Requiem Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and his Master of Music and Artist Diploma from the as part of a broadcast from Westminster Abbey of a canticorum naturally links it with Living Voices and Son Yale Institute of Sacred Music. His past positions have included Associate Organist and Artist service held after the 9/11 attacks on the United States. of God Mass and brings to mind all those who have lost in Residence at Saint Bartholomew’s Church, New York City, and Assistant Organist posts at The text, written by Sir Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate cherished friends and family. Saint James Episcopal Church and the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in New York City and at the time, is an integral part of the piece and was part All shall be Amen and Alleluia was written for the Saint Clement’s Church in Philadelphia. Associate Professor of Organ at Westminster Choir of the same commission. The work was first performed building in which this recording was made, Princeton College, he maintains a full studio of organ students and is one of the most sought-after concert live in a concert in New York on the first anniversary of University Chapel. It was commissioned by James D. organists in North America. He has won numerous awards in the United States and Canada, Photo: Paul Sirochman the 2001 attacks, along with the Son of God Mass. Moyer, an alumnus of Westminster Choir College, and and has been a featured artist at regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Requiem canticorum has its thematic roots in two the Pennsbury Community Chorus. Its magnificent Organists, the Organ Historical Society and the Royal Canadian College of Organists. He has large-scale orchestral works written for the BBC words by the African bishop Saint Augustine of Hippo also been on the roster of Associate Organists for the famous Wanamaker Grand Court organ in Philharmonic, readers and soloists, the first of which, (354-430) are a summation of a great philosophy of life Philadelphia. He has released several critically acclaimed CDs on the JAV label. through the libretto of Michael Symmons Roberts, and death. explored the fearful symmetry of two events both Ronn Carroll commemorated on the same day (6th August): the Feast James Whitbourn A graduate of Westminster Choir College, Ronn Carroll has achieved international success as an actor on stage and screen, as well as a conductor and writer. He served as the conductor of the United States Navy Chorus for three years and has also appeared with the National Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, Washington Opera and Santa Fe Opera. As an actor, he has appeared in twenty Broadway shows, and numerous tours and engagements in London’s West End. He can be heard on the original cast recordings of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, The Rink and Steel Pier. He has also appeared in numerous television programs and feature films including The Producers, 84 Charing Cross Road and Dawson’s Creek.

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