Output details

Requiem: The Trumpets Sounded Calling Them to the Other Side. Composition for chamber choir, soprano and orchestra. Commissioned by Portsmouth Grammar School for Remembrance Day 2009. Premiere: 8th November, 2009, Portsmouth Cathedral, Portsmouth Grammar School Chamber Choir, Annabel Roberts (soprano), London Mozart Players, Nicholas Kraemer (conductor). Score Only. URL evidences date of dissemination. Published by United Music Publishers Ltd.

Requiem was commissioned in 2009 by Portsmouth Grammar School as part of their annual tradition of commissioning a new work on Remembrance Day for performance in Portsmouth Cathedral. The brief was to engage both a professional orchestra (London Mozart Players expanded to full orchestra) and a substantial number of the grammar school students and the Cathedral choirs in a work that would resonate with the general public. The resulting composition therefore aimed at straddling both the traditional orchestral/choral sound world and the more experimental areas within contemporary music practice.The idea of using both sacred and secular texts was inspired by Britten’s War Requiem, but my work recalibrates this idea by developing more experimental areas within the context of the familiar ritual. Central to this is an extended section of choral/instrumental writing that moves seamlessly from traditional notation to controlled improvisation, providing drama by allowing both the disintegration of the rhythmic patterns as well as the key-based pitches. I found a formula for the solution that was not only efficient but required the least amount of rehearsal time. What is distinctive and unusual about this work is its panstylistic embrace of both traditional and experimental musical techniques and its central element: mixing professional musicians with student performers and members of the community.The choice of texts was a significant part of the brief. The setting of the folksong 'Johnny’s Gone for a Soldier' is laced through the traditional requiem structure. The work was premiered in Portsmouth Cathedral in 2009, and since has been performed twice at St Johns, Smith Square (London), Hartford Symphony Orchestra & Chorus (Connecticut, USA) and Trinity Laban Conservatoire (London). Further performances include The Ohio State Contemporary Music Festival, 2013 (USA).