Composer: Robert Chilcott
Performer: Ella Theurer, Andreea Muţ, Jessica Myers, Richard Brown, Mark Stein, Leonardo Soto, Matt Richards, Marianna Parnas-Simpson, Houston Chamber Choir, Treble Choir of Houston
Conductor: Robert Simpson
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Signum
Catalogue: SIGCD703
Release: 2022
Size: 1.04 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Circlesong
01. Introduction: Beauty Before Me / We Wait In Darkness
02. Part I, Birth: Song for Bringing a Child into the World
03. Part I, Birth: Newborn
04. Part II, Childhood: Yaqui Song
05. Part II, Childhood: A Child’s Song
06. Part II, Childhood: Give Me Strength
07. Part III, Lover: Chinook Songs
08. Part III, Lover: Over the Wave
09. Part IV, Adulthood: Summer Song
10. Part V, Middle Age: O Great Spirit
11. Part VI, Old Age: In the House Made of Dawn
12. Part VII, Death: Farewell, My Brother
13. Part VII, Death: The Sun’s Beams are Running Out / We Wait in the Darkness
14. Like a Rainbow
15. All Things Pass
16. Circles of Motion
17. Walking the Red Road
A work filled with ambition, ‘Circlesong’ is a musical portrayal of the human life cycle as captured in the indigenous poetry of North America.
Based on poetry from the Chinook, Comanche, Dakota, Eskimo, Iroquois, Kwakiutl, Navajo, Ojibwa, Pueblo, Seminole, Sioux and Yaqui traditions, the thirteen movements, in seven parts, mark the different stages of life, from birth and childhood to adulthood, middle age and death.
With energetic percussion accompaniment, climactic moments for tutti choir, tender unaccompanied passages and solo song, ‘Circlesong’ is a work of impressive drama, variety and depth, performed here by the GRAMMY Award winning Houston Chamber Choir under Robert Simpson.
Founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Robert Simpson, the Houston Chamber Choir received the 2019 GRAMMY for Best Choral Performance for its recording of the complete works of Maurice Duruflé (also available from Signum). Other honours include Chorus America’s Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence and the American Prize, Professional Choir Division.
Dubbed by Jamie Bernstein as “the choral equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters,” the Houston Chamber Choir is as comfortable singing jazz with Christian McBride and Dave Brubeck as performing Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel with violist Kim Kashkashian, and Mass Observation by Tarik O’Regan.