Paraclete Press, rooted as it is within liturgical renewal and reform, has provided us with wonderful resources for personal reflection and congregational renewal. "
—The Very Rev. Dr. Donald P. Richmond, Obl.OSB., Forward in Christ

"The singing of Gloriae Dei Cantores and the playing of the Skinner organ at [the] Church of the Transfiguration, Orleans, Mass., enhance the rich text of 20 psalms...Especially helpful is the accompanying booklet that explains Anglican psalmody and includes brief meditations that place each psalm in historical context. An accurate, balanced, pleasing musical aid to meditation on God's love and faithfulness to all generations."
—The Living Church

• First recording of the professional vocal ensemble Cathedra, which is based at Washington National Cathedral andirected by Michael McCarthy

The Anglican musical tradition is rich with music for All Saints Day. The choirs of St. Philips Cathedral in Atlanta, under the direction of Dale Adelmann, perform new and traditional anthems with themes of heaven and the saints. Mr. Adelmann, Canon for Music at the Cathedral of St. Philip since 2009, has conducted choral festivals and workshops across the US. He is a past president of the Association of Anglican Musicians and served terms as editor and consulting editor of its Journal. Completing a Ph.D. specializing in the revival of Anglican choral worship at the University of Cambridge, England, he became the first North American to sing in the Choir of St. John’s College, and served as musical director of The Gentlemen of St. John’s.

The South Dakota Chorale is a professional chorus organization that gathers talented singers to share impacting performances of choral arts. Based in Sioux Falls, SD - the Chorale provides local professional singers the unique opportunity to make music, in their own backyard, with other great singers and instrumentalists from around the country. The Chorale recorded their debut commercial album with Grammy-winning producer Blanton Alspaugh. The album is particularly significant in that it includes the first major American recording of the Duruflé Requiem that utilizes Duruflé’s solo organ score. The South Dakota Chorale brings a rare opportunity for music lovers to add this version of the Requiem to their own collections.

SIMPLE GIFTS • Doug Fullington, cond; Tudor Ch • GOTHIC 49265 (59:35 &)


Choruses and arrangements by BRACKETT, HAMMOND, jr., BRADY, SIEGFRIED, BILLINGS, NEAUM, POSTON, THOMSON, COPLAND, fine, Ireland, VAUGHAN WILLIAMS, PERCIVAL, RUTTER, FULLINGTON, CHILCOTT, TRAD


The Tudor Choir is a Seattle-based chamber chorus of 12 voices, whose recording on Loft of Shaker music, in arrangements by Kevin Siegfried, Craig Zeichner “implored” us to buy (25:1). This recording is intended as a complement to that earlier one, and offers slightly more varied fare, all of it from the same musical and emotional neighborhood, however. The choir uses little vibrato and its fairly bright sound lets the sopranos stick out at the cost of the altos, though this is in part because there are only two altos but four sopranos. The choir sings cleanly and articulates clearly, and that is always a plus, even if one wishes there were a bit more heft now and then.


The core of this program is Shaker music, though only one Shaker piece is done in the unison we take to be the Shaker style, and that is the title piece (which, however, uses a variant of the melody we best know in Aaron Copland’s use of it in Appalachian Spring ). These words, and three different arrangements of it, by Kevin Siegfried, Copland (as further arranged by Irving Fine), and Bob Chilcott (for the King’s Singers), recur throughout the program. These are certainly more polished versions of Shaker tunes than those exhibited on Joel Cohen’s more scholarly recording with the same title (on Erato), done in the Sabbathday Lake Shaker community.


The major piece on the program is At the water’s edge , a setting by Kevin Siegfried of four poems by Sarah Orne Jewett. Commissioned in 2005 by the community chorus of South Berwick, Maine, where Jewett lived, these are gentle, largely consonant, nature settings, though the third, in five parts, ventures some discreet dissonance. They are similar in style with the rest of the program.


This matter of stylistic coherence is one of the striking features of this recording. Most of the arrangements are by Siegfried, and those by others share similar traits. That is, they tend to adopt the scale-structure of the melody being arranged. This was a technique demonstrated to great effect by Robert Shaw and Alice Parker in their arrangements of spirituals, which, like a number of the tunes here, have “gapped scales,” that is, scales that are incomplete somewhere within them.


This is a fine recording and I think Siegfried’s unfussy Jewett settings are certainly worth getting to know. They are a solid, mainstream, contribution to the modern American choral repertoire.


FANFARE: Alan Swanson

Includes work(s) by Luca Pianca, Corinna Korff. Ensemble: Washington Memorial Pipes. Conductor: Frank Albinder.

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This disc was recorded live at the 1995 Spoleto Festival U.S.A. in Charleston, South Carolina.el 11/01 koch del list
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In Tune 5/96 P.138
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fan 9/96 p.385

This program honors those who have served in the armed forces of the United States of America. “The Call”, which was commissioned by the choir, is by Dave Metzger, widely known for his many arrangements and orchestrations for films such as Training Day, August Rush, Frozen and the Broadway production of The Lion King--for which he won a Tony Award. (Gothic)

These premiere recordings, consisting of a Missa Brevis and Evensong settings plus organ interludes and voluntaries, represent the entire body of James D’Angelo’s sacred music. + An American living in England, the composer has assimilated and melded together diverse styles as found in the music of Gesualdo and other chromatic Renaissance composers, Hindemith, Debussy, Ravel, Holst and his mentor, the 20th c. Parisian composer Jean Catoire. + The resulting unique stylistic fusion has become the hallmark of Mr. D’Angelo’s distinctive musical language.

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This is the first in a series recorded at the Washington National Cathedral featuring new American choral music.

William Hawley (b. 1950) is one of the central figures in today's American choral music renaissance. As a student at Ithaca College and the California Institute of the Arts, he composed avant-garde instrumental works, and even flirted with minimalism. The launch of his Two Motets in 1981 demonstrated a shift to vocal music and a more emotionally direct style. His continuing American choral music has helped establish compositional trends since adopted by Morten Lauridsen, Eric Whitacre, and the like. Winner: American Prize in Choral Performance and the Margaret Hillis Award.

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Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: National Cathedral Choral Society Washington, D.C.. Conductor: J. Reilly Lewis.

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I could, if I wanted to, but I don't... This was the alleged response of Anton Bruckner to singer Rosa Papiers question, why he wouldn't compose songs like Johannes Brahms did. Eight songs by Anton Bruckner are academically proven, which - with one exception - were composed during his time and life in St. Florian and Linz. With his latest recording, the distinguished Austrian Bass Robert Holzer devotes himself, along with Thomas Kerbl, piano and conducting, the choir Chorvereinigung Bruckner and the chamber orchestra of the Anton Bruckner private conservatory Linz, to the unjustly neglected songs and the Magnificat by Bruckner. A sensation came about in the year 2015 with the discovery of the song Der Mondabend, with it's world premiere recording being released on this album.

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Founded in 1998 with members from the world-famous Gachinger Kantorei, Stuttgart's celebrated men's choir "Die Meistersinger" have devoted themselves to rescuing the rich repository of 19th century works for male voices from obscurity. The "Mannerchor" has a distinguished history throughout the Germanic lands, often serving the community with multiple functions such as a social club, political forum or an ad hoc auxiliary to professional guilds. In keeping with the spirit of the season, "Die Meistersinger" return to offer their perfect blend of voices and rich, goldenhued sound in a program of Christmas favorites.