Album Recording: The Choir of St. James – “O Beauty Ever Ancient Ever New”
$20.00
Track Listing:
- Salve Regina for Five Voices (Part 1) – (Cristóbal de Morales)
- Magnificat (Merton College, Oxford) – (Ēriks Ešenvalds)
- Nunc Dimittis (Merton College, Oxford) – (Ešenvalds)
- Agnus Dei, Missa Miamiensis – (James Buonemani)
- Second Eve – (Ola Gjeilo)
- My Love (A Celtic Prayer) – (Buonemani)
- Dum medium silentium – (Vytautas Miškinis)
- Timor et tremor, Quatre Motets pour un temps de pénitence – (Francis Poulenc)
- A Litany – (William Walton)
- Let all mortal flesh keep silence – (Edward Bairstow)
- O Beauty Ever Ancient Ever New – (Buonemani)
Description
The choir’s first commercially available CD is now available worldwide! We are grateful to Dr. Christopher Gravis, husband of long-time chorister Andrea Zomorodian, for his insightful introductory notes to the CD: “ … a musical reflection of a mystical spirituality that is rooted in the ancient, while simultaneously surging forward into the unknown. It is both old and new, eschewing the temporal. It is eternal.”
Featuring the contemporary music of Baltic composers Miškinis, Ešenvalds, and Geilo alongside the established Anglican composers Walton and Bairstow, the album also includes Poulenc’s Lenten masterpiece “Timor et tremor” and three compositions by conductor James Buonemani including the title work written in 2011 for the 100th Anniversary of St. James Church, premiered in May of 2012. Anchoring this mostly contemporary selection of music is the profound “Salve Regina” by the 16th century Spanish composer Cristóbal de Morales.
Regarding the title work, Buonemani writes:
Humans have always celebrated the cycle of life, where death is the gateway to birth, and birth to death, in ritual and song – a retelling of ancient stories in new and immediate ways. These are the ineffable mysteries of Christianity, and indeed, of all life: a Beauty Ever Ancient Ever New.