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'The Voice of the Bard deserves to be nurtured and savoured by all accomplished chamber choirs.'

The Voice of the Bard

Vocal score

Forces or Category: SATB (with divisions) unaccompanied

New Horizons

for SATB (with divisions) unaccompanied
Celebratory in tone using glissandi, flowing melismatic passages, and exuberant homophonic textures.

'The Voice of the Bard deserves to be nurtured and savoured by all accomplished chamber choirs.'

The Voice of the Bard

Vocal score

Description

for SATB (with divisions) unaccompanied
Using as its basis William Blake's eponymous poem from the Songs of Innocence and Experience, this work is largely celebratory in tone and employs a range of techniques and textures as a means of expression including glissandi, flowing melismatic passages, and exuberant homophonic sections.
Commissioned by the BBC for the BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year for 2006, Chantage and first performed by Chantage, directed by James Davey, at the British Composer Awards on 5 December 2007 in Glaziers Hall, London.

Programme Notes:

Setting William Blake's poem of the same name, The Voice of the Bard was commissioned by the BBC for the BBC Radio 3 Choir of the Year 2006, Chantage, and first performed by Chantage, directed by James Davey at the British Compser Awards, Glaziers Hall, London on 5 December 2007.

'The Voice of the Bard deserves to be nurtured and savoured by all accomplished chamber choirs.'

The Voice of the Bard

Vocal score

Gabriel Jackson

New Horizons

Composer Information

Gabriel Jackson (b.1962)

One of Britain's foremost composers, after three years as a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral, Gabriel Jackson went on to study composition with Richard Blackford and John Lambert at the Royal College of Music. Particularly acclaimed for his choral works, his liturgical pieces are in the repertoires of most of Britain's cathedral and collegiate choirs and he is a frequent collaborator with the leading professional groups of the world. From 2010-2013 he was Associate Composer to the BBC Singers. In 2014 his hour-long The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, commissioned for the 750th anniversary of Merton College, Oxford, was premiered in its chapel. May 2015 saw the premiere at the Latvian National Opera of Spring Rounds for soprano, choir and orchestra, commissioned by the Riga-based youth choir Kamer for their 25th anniversary. He was recently commissioned by The Marian Consort to write Stabat Mater to mark their 10th anniversary.

Gabriel Jackson's website

'The Voice of the Bard deserves to be nurtured and savoured by all accomplished chamber choirs.'

The Voice of the Bard

Vocal score

Gabriel Jackson

New Horizons

Reviews and Awards

"The Voice of the Bard, Gabriel Jackson's corruscatingly beautiful Blake setting for SATB, stands as musically the finest and technically the most demainding of these pieces. The mighty opening statement in unison octaves evokes both the mellifluous derring-do of the early Tudor polyphony and ancient cantorial singing. The choral passage's soloistic virtuosity gives way to a sublime reflection on the bard's prophetic vision of innocence and experience, in which choir and four solo voices intertwine. Jackson's visionary soundscape encompasses everything from the ecstatic to the transcendent. The Voice of the Bard deserves to be nurtured and savoured by all accomplished chamber choirs." - Andrew Stewart, Choir & Organ, September 2010