In the Beginning Was the Word

The atmosphere of the Wild West is caught in a striking and most imaginative way by young composer Andreas Schulte in this work. A caravan of gold- and fortuneseekers launch themselves into a big adventure and begin their rush westward. The first movement desciribes these first days of buoyancy and optimism in a crisp march. Near the campfire the pioneers rest themselves and the music expresses feelings of romance nostalgia for the past and hopes for the future. A wistful melody very characteristically communicates these feelings. Relaxation takes place in the third movement which is a musical characterization of a rodeo and its attendant festivities.It is obvious that sometimes something goes wrong and this aspect can also be heard. Nevertheless the valiant rider wins in the end. With a flashback to the beginning the journey is completed musically thus giving the composition a dignified finale. Let the mystic Wild West entrance you. (Wagons ho ....!!) De sfeer van het Wilde Westen wordt door de jonge componist Andreas Ludwig Schulte op een uiterst treffende en beeldende wijze geschetst. Een karavaan van goud- en gelukzoekers stort zich in het grote avontuur en begint de grote reis naar het westen. Het eerste gedeelte beschrijft de eerste dagen van opgewektheid en optimisme in een vlotte mars. Bij het kampvuur komen de pioniers tot rust en worden gevoelens van romantiek heimwee (verleden) en hoop (toekomst) muzikaal weergegeven. Een weemoedige melodie verwoordt die gevoelens op een zeer kenmerkende wijze. De ontspanning vindt plaats in het derde deel waarin een rodeofeest muzikaal wordt verklankt. Met een flashback van het begin wordt de tocht voltooid en de compositie waardig afgesloten. Raak in de ban van het wilde westen!

The atmosphere of the Wild West is caught in a striking and most imaginative way by young composer Andreas Schulte in this work. A caravan of gold- and fortuneseekers launch themselves into a big adventure and begin their rush westward. The first movement desciribes these first days of buoyancy and optimism in a crisp march. Near the campfire the pioneers rest themselves and the music expresses feelings of romance nostalgia for the past and hopes for the future. A wistful melody very characteristically communicates these feelings. Relaxation takes place in the third movement which is a musical characterization of a rodeo and its attendant festivities.It is obvious that sometimes something goes wrong and this aspect can also be heard. Nevertheless the valiant rider wins in the end. With a flashback to the beginning the journey is completed musically thus giving the composition a dignified finale. Let the mystic Wild West entrance you. (Wagons ho ....!!) De sfeer van het Wilde Westen wordt door de jonge componist Andreas Ludwig Schulte op een uiterst treffende en beeldende wijze geschetst. Een karavaan van goud- en gelukzoekers stort zich in het grote avontuur en begint de grote reis naar het westen. Het eerste gedeelte beschrijft de eerste dagen van opgewektheid en optimisme in een vlotte mars. Bij het kampvuur komen de pioniers tot rust en worden gevoelens van romantiek heimwee (verleden) en hoop (toekomst) muzikaal weergegeven. Een weemoedige melodie verwoordt die gevoelens op een zeer kenmerkende wijze. De ontspanning vindt plaats in het derde deel waarin een rodeofeest muzikaal wordt verklankt. Met een flashback van het begin wordt de tocht voltooid en de compositie waardig afgesloten. Raak in de ban van het wilde westen!

Chicago - Transcribed Scores Volume 1. Note-for-note transcriptions for every instrument exactly as performed on the recording. 9 songs including: Beginnings * Loneliness Is Just a Word * Make Me Smile * Now More Than Ever * Poem for the People * Questions 67 and 68 * The Road * To Be Free * 25 or 6 to 4.

Make the silence talk'La Muette knew how to make the silence talk like no one', writes Djavann in his book (La Muette, © Flammarion 2008). Those words deeply touched me for they express one of the most beautiful metaphors in music. Through the lines of discourse, beyond words, I was listening to the silence of 'La Muette'. A rare and intense listening which joins the same internal listening I use when I'm writing my score. I was listening to La Muette, I decided to write a new piece to make the silent voice of La Muette told by Chahdortt Djavann sound through music. Choosing the extracts The text put in music is composed of short extracts from Djavann's story. I focused on this woman's portrait, who conquers her freedom through silence in which she forms a strong love relationship with her niece Fatemeh on the one hand, and the Uncle on the other hand. 'She had made her silence become her art of living, her freedom' writes Djavann. The extremely dramatic tension, the flow of the singing in Persian language, and the oppression in relation to the Iranian context are trying to underline the independent beauty of that woman who resists and exists without a voice. Story A young 15 years old Iranian girl named Fatemeh is in jail. Waiting for her death sentence, she writes the story of her aunt on a small notebook, 'so that someone remembers La Muette and myself'. The young teenager was raised by her aunt who becomes mute because she decided to stop talking on a dark day of her own childhood when she was interrogated, never to tell THE truth. An aunt whose silence makes even more fascinating, haughty, with an insolent look, cigarette at her lips, bare-footed and without any scarf on her head. 'La Muette' had made her silence become her art of living, her freedom. Around her, women start to talk, even considering her mad, for only a mad person could act this way. Fatemeh loves her mute aunt unconditionally, that is how she wants to become a woman, by being like her, fascinated by her silence and her excesses. La Muette embodies a figure of Freedom and makes us remember that in some countries, the woman who won't be submissive risks capital punishment. She will be hung. Following this beautiful text by Chahdortt Djavann, 'La Muette', a powerful text, stiff, tensed, without any lyricism nor compromises, which takes place in Iran under the Mollahs' regime. Persian: Phonological material / Compositional material Djavann's story is written in French. I asked Baharé Khadjé-Nouri to translate the text into Persian, and worked with her on pronunciation, accentuation, metric and the structure of the language, and I thank her again for that. I spent a long time having some people reading me the text in Persian and through listening I immersed myself in that sound universe. From this linguistic material, the beginning of the piece starts with the constitution of a tank of sound objects which will constitute parts of the compositional material. To compose the phonological tank, I worked on writing the pronunciation that lies at the origin of every possible vocal composition, writing the tone as well as the 'percussive - resounding' aspects of phonemes, multiple uses of fricative consonants or sibilants. Finally I used the vocal treatment of the phoneme through modes of play in relation to sprechsang: sing -inspire, or -expire, -blow, -chanting, -whispering, -spitting, -speaking. But a purely phonetic analysis of the vocal structures composing the sung part would reduce the word to its mere phonetic entity. The phonological material then constituted a compositional material by giving to the sung word its semantic entity. Form of the piece To strip the drama off every narrative element, at least of the discursive and linear character of the story, I first re-organized parts of the text extracted from the whole book in an order fitting the form I wanted to give to the piece (except for the beginning and ending which are kept in their linear forms). I imagined Fatemeh in jail, whose memories bounced between the four walls of her cell: recurring musical material, re-injected in an obsessive way, disjointed and contrasted, continuously modified each time, bouncing from one sequence to the next in another state. The piece is divided into 5 sequences, between each of them is an instrumental interlude with a voice-off, the voice of the present in the cell that contrasts with the singing voice of the sequence, evocation of memories of La Muette (sequence 1: preamble, sequence 2: portrait of La Muette, sequence 3: La Muette and Fatemeh, sequence 4: La Muette and the Uncle, sequence 5: epilogue). Electroacoustic setupFor this piece, I wrote the electroacoustic parts myself at the same time I was writing the instrumental parts. The electroacoustic setup is here considered as a whole instrument, an instrument added to the 12 others electroacoustic instruments and to Donatienne's voice. The electroacoustic sounds are divided into three types: - Samples from the singer's voice and instruments of the TM+ ensemble transformed - The narrator's voice Baharé Khadjé-Nouri in Persian, original version or transformed - Extra-musical sounds As for the synchronization between the acoustic and the electroacoustic scores, we will use for the first time an innovative application developed by Frédéric Bevilacqua and Bruno Zamborlin, not to follow the moves as we did it in StreicherKreis (my string quartet created in November 2008), but to follow the voice and orchestra. Thus, we will be using an 'audio-following', which constituted a first. This setup of recognition and following will allow the synchronization between instrumental and electroacoustic scores in a musical and precise way. Concerning the interactivity between performers and device, it will all be in real-time. Characteristics of the musicians' sound will 'interpret' what comes out of the speakers. The musicians will define the settings of the sound transformations, in terms of space, transposition, tone or length. This new piece expresses a message through the choice of subject that goes beyond strictly music. For me, it is important that both the composer and writer can invest their work into problematics which they're confronted to because they are immediate witnesses. / Soprano Et Percussions

Based on the words of Mother Teresa this and other selected quotes are woven together to create a stunning lyric of love and compassion. With melody and harmony weaving above a flowing piano accompaniment and optional violin this new SATB and SAB voicings also contain a short narrative at the beginning and the end focusing on Mother Teresa. Extremely moving.

The cantata for SATB Choir and Piano In The Beginning was originally written while Gregson was studying at the Royal Academy of Music and scored for women’s Voices and Piano. In 1981 the composer revised and enlarged it extensively. The revised (and published) version is for mixed Choir and Piano. Words are taken from the first four verses of Genesis Chapter 1 the jubilant Latin exhortation Gloria in Excelsis Deo and a poem written by Susan Smith (later Susan Gregson). The compact yet dramatic work is not too technically demanding for intermediate/advanced (grades 6-8) groups. Duration ca. 10 minutes.Edward Gregson is an Englishcomposer of international standing whose music has been performed broadcast and recorded worldwide. He has written orchestral chamber instrumental and choral music as well as music for the theatre film and television.

Includes versions for High Medium or Low Voice (G F or E flat) with Piano accompaniment. Performance note by Gordon Stewart.Preface:The words for Panis Angelicus are from a longer hymn text Sacris Solemnis written by St Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century for the newly established Feast of Corpus Christi and would originally have been sung to a plainchant. César Franck set this verse of seven lines in 1872. His deep religious feelings fashioned a memorable melody one which is within the scope of all singers - its range is only a seventh and if you follow the word patterns the breathing sits comfortably. It is in its way simple and direct but with the chance to use the voice to its full. The Latin words are not hard to sing but if you prefer to perform it in English the translation conveys the essential meaning. Franck originally wrote Panis Angelicus for Tenor Cello Harp Organ and Double Bass but it slips easily into the Keyboard arrangement. The colours of the original scoring are evident the Organ's sustained chords the semi-staccato notes for the Harp and the Cello's countermelody beginning in bar 38 (which could be transferred to another melodic instrument if that suits the occasion). Some discreet repetition of the long tied notes and doubling of the bass at the octave can give the Piano more resonance. The accompaniment probably works best with a minimum pedalling and an Organist's style of fingering. The dynamics ask for a triumphant final statement of the words 'pauper servus' in bar 53. It makes complete musical sense to make a diminuendo for the word 'humilis' in bar 56 leading to a thoughtful postlude.

Passion Music continues the fusion of jazz and choral music so successfully blended in Will Todd's Mass in Blue. The structure highlights different points in the Passion story beginning with a new setting of 'Greater love has no man' and including an evocative Stabat Mater a movement focusing on the seven last words of Christ and a setting of 'Were you there when they crucified my Lord?'. While some sections are reflective Todd also makes full use of his understanding of energetic jazz and gospel. The vocal soloist is given plenty of expressive freedom singing both with the choir and independently to achieve the characteristic jazz-soulstyle. The seven-piece jazz accompaniment which is presented in the vocal score as a piano reduction for rehearsal only completes the ensemble.  The full score and set of parts for the jazz accompaniment are available on sale and hire. A complete backing track and individual rehearsal tracks for the vocal parts are also available to download.

The music to the popular album from the contemporary Milanese composer. The composer writes Eden Roc is the name of a place in the south coast of France where the writer Francis Scott Fitzgerald lived and where he located the beginning of his novel 'Tender is the night'. From that book I partially took the inspiration for Eden Roc, as well as the name itself recall me the idea of an ideal place where you can find your inner balance in the world.