Nico Muhly

Muhly fell in love with Byrd’s setting of the Christmas words Senex Puerum Portabat as a chorister so much that the ‘fluidity of the lines the relentless lilting rhythm and the way Byrd both avoided and cradled the text’ that he was inspired to follow a life in music. Early in his career he set the same text in modern style. The first statement of the words is a capella with ecstatic brass entering in the restatement. The ancient Hodie Christus Natus Est follows on seamlessly in a new mood.Contemporary American composer Nico Muhly is a prolific writer and arranger who at 32 is the youngest composer ever to have been commissioned by the Metropolitan Operain New York. His oeuvre includes two operas and many solo pieces and works for small ensemble Orchestra and Chorus and he has collaborated widely.

Vocal score for Nico Muhly's God Will Be Their Light. Composed for AATTBB choir unaccompanied includes texts from Revelation 22 vv.1-2 King James Version (1611) & Prayer for Compline (after Revelation 22 vv.3--4) Common Worship (2005). Commissioned by The Queen's Six and first performed on 4 April 2018 at Hood College Frederick Maryland USA. Duration: c. 3 minutes  

Nico Muhly's Dominus Regnavit for SATB choir and Organ.This work was commissioned by the Master and Fellows of St John's College Cambridge supported by a generous donation from Paul and Joanna Lindsell. It was first performed on 24 May 2014 by the Choir of St John’s College Cambridge Andrew Nethsingha (conductor) and Edward Picton-Turbervill (organist).The Lord is King and hath put on glorious apparel : the Lord hath put on his apparel andgirded himself with strength.He hath made the round world so sure : that it cannot be moved.Ever since the world began hath thy seat been prepared : thou art from everlasting.The floods are risen O Lord the floods have lift up their voice : the floods lift up their waves.The waves of the sea are mighty and rage horribly : but yet the Lord who dwelleth on high ismightier.Thy testimonies O Lord are very sure : holiness becometh thine house for ever. - Dominus Regnavit Psalm 93 Book of Common Prayer

The sheet music for contemporary virtuoso composer Nico Muhly's So Many Things arranged for Mezzo-Soprano and Piano Accompaniment. So Many Things was commissioned by a number of institutions including The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association UC Berkeley and Carnegie Hall. Lasting around 15 minutes Muhly has set three poems to this wonderful music including a lengthy narrative poem by Joyce Carol Oates and two translations of C.F. Cavafy by Daniel Mendelsohn. Muhly has brilliantly managed to take the emotion of the words and replicate them through music creating an astonishingly movingaccompaniment that not only reflects the lyrical sentiment but complements it. He states that the Piano moves between skittish and ostinato relentless but often pausing for an effective break in the musical narrative. With drones and palindromes from the Piano the Voice leaps between intervals creating a dynamism that creates uncertainty rather than resolve much like the poetry.

Version With Two Pianos and Percussion-Bright Mass With Canons by composer Nico Muhly was originally composed for SATB chorus and Organ Accompaniment but this arrangement features Two Pianos and Percussion. This is the set of Parts for this unique arrangement of a wonderful composition. This work was arranged by Buck McDaniel in 2014 and features an intriguing mix of percussive instruments like the Triangle Glockenspiel and Vibraphone together with the Two Pianos creating a wholly new piece that takes the original composition and transforms it with an entirely new sound and dynamic. The work is divided into four sections Kyrie Gloria Sanctus& Benedictus and Agnus Dei.

Nico Muhly's Looking Up for SATB and Orchestra. Programme note:Looking Up is a piece for large chorus and orchestra and is in three sections played without pause. In the 16th century a variety of psalters in meter were printed in England with the idea of making psalm-singing something that could happen easily at home with the rhyming meter being an aid to memorization. These translations are wonderful exercises in brevity and sometimes clumsy rhymemaking and were usually prefaced by a lengthy explanation as to their merits; the title of one of the first such volumes in English is: The Psalter of Dauid newely translated into Englysh metre in such sortthat it maye the more decently and wyth more delyte of the mynde be reade and songe of al men. I thought it would be appropriate to set one of these introductions and the first section of Looking Up sets the preface to Thomas Ravenscroft’s psalter (1621) in which he writes: “The singing of Psalmes (as say the Doctors) comforteth the sorrowfull pacifieth the angry strengtheneth the weake humbleth the proud gladdeth the humble stirres up the slow reconcileth enemies lifteth up the heart to heavenly things and uniteth the Creature to his Creator.” It begins meditatively but eventually grows agitated and fervent with a vision of the “quire of Angels and Saints” “redoubling and descanting” — an ecstatic and terrifying vision of the skies opening up. Ravenscroft then encourages the use of instrumental music for worship at which point a long acrobatic orchestral interlude with jagged edges antagonizes the choir who sing a kind of private anxious meditation on two pitches. One of the most delicious biblical texts is an Apocryphal prayer known as the Benedicite or the Prayer of the Three Children (the same who were rescued by an angel after King Nebuchadnezzar tried to have them burnt in an oven for not bowing to his image). The text is repetitive obsessive and a gift to composers

Soprano/Piano-The world premiere was given by Jessica Rivera and Maryann Kim in Weill Recital Hall Carnegie Hall New York City on 13 March 2009. The text is taken from Psalms 63 and 56 and from The Gospel according to St. John.

Johannis Cantabrigiense-Nico Muhly's Third Service (Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis) is a work for SATB Choir and Organ Accompaniment. Commissioned by the Master and Fellows of St John's College Cambridge it was first performed by St John's College Choir on 29th May 2016. A full performance lasts around 7.5 minutes. 'The American composer Nico Muhly has often spoken of his love of the early English church music which he sang as a choirboy and his recent choral works include a Third Service composed for St John's College Cambridge. (Given his love of music by Thomas Weelkes we can perhaps hope for at least six more.) This setting though has nothing to do with the early English repertoire and is in a bold modern idiom more akin to Tippett's famous setting for St. John's. The Organ plays a varied and independent role throughout sometimes with dynamics that are quite different to those in the voice parts. The Organ part is sometimes written on two staves without further comment and it's not entirely clear what is required between pages 3 and 4 where three staves become two. The vocal parts include some modest vocal effects and there are Soprano and Alto solos in the Nunc dmittis. The Gloria of the Nunc is a varied repeat of the Magnificat Gloria together with a subtly reworked conclusion to match the general mood of the movement. - Geoffrey Webber Choir & Organ Magazine 

The sheet music of Nico Muhly's work Recordare Domine for unaccompanied SATB (Soprano/Alto/Tenor/Bass) Chorus. Originally commissioned by The Tallis Scholars from the Lincoln Center of the Performing Arts and Lafayette College the composition had its world premiere on the 15th November 2013. The piece is a unique setting of a Bible verse from Lamentations and is as haunting as it is beautiful. Nico Muhly is a world-renowned contemporary composer who works in a dizzying number of genres. He has composed works for popular cinema Piano small ensemble Orchestra andChorus. This piece is for an unaccompanied four-part chorus consisting of a Soprano Alto Tenor and Bass and lasts about 5 minutes. Our Recordare Domine sheet music is the most accurate transcription available of this contemporary choral piece by versatile and virtuouso composer Nico Muhly.

The Beatitudes is a work by Nico Muhly taken from the four-movement work 'Our Present Charter' commissioned by the Choir of the Temple Church Mother-Church of the Common Law to celebrate the 800th Anniversary of the Sealing of Magna Carta on 15th June 1215. This Vocal Score is for SATB Choir and Organ Accompaniment and lasts around 4 minutes.

How Soon? is a work by Nico Muhly for SSAA Choir and Ensemble. Commissioned by eighth blackbird the Kennesaw State University School of Music and the Anima-Young Singers of Greater Chicago the piece is a setting of George Herbert's poem 'Mortification' and lasts around 10 minutes.

This exclusive collection brings together 12 of Nico Muhly?s sacred works for mixed-voice choir. These vivacious fresh and dramatic pieces will make an impact whether in the church or in the concert hall and range from the intimate Lord keep us modest when we claim to the effervescent Bright Star Carol alongside service music such as Muhly?s Third Service. All are accessible to learn and offer choirs a new slant on contemporary choral music at its very best.  'Choral music has always been at the emotional core of my musical output. Even when I?m writing large-scale orchestral works (or indeed chamber music) I alwaysfind myself returning to techniques and textures I?ve greedily stolen from centuries of music from Tye to Howells early and recent. I try to design my own choral music primarily for use in worship where the measure of the success of the piece is if it helps guide the listeners? ears upwards and elsewhere as sacred architecture and the various rituals of the church themselves are meant to do. The specificity of music heard only in certain seasons is for me an important and thrilling element of the choral tradition: a Beethoven Symphony is welcome at any point in the year but an anthem for Candlemas works only then at a certain time of day and on a certain day of the year. With this functional spirit at the heart of the compositional process I hope that the music collected here makes equal sense in a concert setting. These works range from ordinaries of the mass to hymns to motets and represent a decade and a half of output.' - Nico Muhly