Search This Blog

Friday, July 27, 2012

Ola Gjeilo, Northern Lights, Choral Works, Phoenix Chorale

We talked about Ola Gjeilo's piano improvisation disk recently on these pages (see below). Now we backtrack to an earlier disk called Northern Lights (Chandos), where the Phoenix Chorale under Charles Bruffy perform a number of his choral works.

This is a kind of post-minimalist lyrical music. The chorale sounds marvelous a capella or with the accompaniment of string quartet, piano, etc.

The music is enchanting and moving in a way that no doubt has had wide appeal. Ola writes for the chorale with a sure hand, taking advantage of vocal ranges and their special qualities to map out an otherworldly vocal landscape.

This is not in any way avant music so much as pleasing and sometimes very moving sonances that bring to the forefront the beauty of the human voice.

If you revel in the possibilities of the new tonality, and respond to a great sounding chorus singing very strongly lyrical, well constructed music, you will no doubt love this one,

No comments:

Post a Comment