Threshold of Night presents the Austin-based choral group in a program of premiere recordings of new works for voices and strings by the award-winning young British composer Tarik O'Regan. These peices- setting texts of Br... more »itish and North and South American writers - explore teh ecstasies of heaven and the challenges of life on Earth. O'Regan's is a music of polarities, sometimes contained with a single piece. The works here range from the dense and propulsive to the airy and meditative. Settings of 2 poems by Emily Dickinson, both commissioned by Conspirare, bookend the program. The title work, Threshold of Night (setting one of Kathleen Raine's Three Poems of Incarnation), earned O'Regan the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters Award in the Liturgical category. Written for Advent and completed on the eve of the first annivesary of Hurricane Katrina, its blues-inflected harmonies echo that community's need for guidance in the wake of disaster.« less
Threshold of Night presents the Austin-based choral group in a program of premiere recordings of new works for voices and strings by the award-winning young British composer Tarik O'Regan. These peices- setting texts of British and North and South American writers - explore teh ecstasies of heaven and the challenges of life on Earth. O'Regan's is a music of polarities, sometimes contained with a single piece. The works here range from the dense and propulsive to the airy and meditative. Settings of 2 poems by Emily Dickinson, both commissioned by Conspirare, bookend the program. The title work, Threshold of Night (setting one of Kathleen Raine's Three Poems of Incarnation), earned O'Regan the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters Award in the Liturgical category. Written for Advent and completed on the eve of the first annivesary of Hurricane Katrina, its blues-inflected harmonies echo that community's need for guidance in the wake of disaster.
CD Reviews
Groundbreaking: truly spectacular
John | Texas | 09/09/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"
Not much to add to all the press already listed in the previous review. I think many people will come to the disc from O'Regan's previous effort, 'Scattered Rhymes': Scattered Rhymes.
Anyway, this neatly follows on from that stellar recording with the kind of music I've never heard before. It's fast, it's rhythmic, it's dense and textured - all the nuances of a symphony orchestra somehow parsed through voices and string instruments. The performances are 10/10.
Groundbreaking stuff!"
Critical praise
Sabrosa | Los Angeles, CA | 09/04/2008
(4 out of 5 stars)
""You absolutely should not hesitate to give this program a listen. The seven works...are not only significant and eminently worthy entries into the modern choral repertoire, but they also are accessible in the best sense of the word...the music immediately reveals itself and rewards careful, serious listening." "O'Regan's intentions and realization of the texts speak for themselves through artful, consistently engaging choral writing." "the performances are first rate--this choir has an established reputation for excellence and has taken to O'Regan's music as if it were created just for them (which some of it was!)...Don't miss this."
Sound Quality: 10 / Performance: 10
- David Vernier, CLASSICSTODAY.COM
"This music for chorus and strings is of unearthly beauty."
- Jeff Simon, THE BUFFALO NEWS
"[O'Regan's] music is virtuosic, impulsively careening toward maximum drama in his treatment of texts by Edgar Allan Poe and Pablo Neruda, often with simultaneous ideas in opposing keys...but so skillfully written for the choral medium that singers don't come close to losing their bearings."
- David Patrick Stearns, THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
"Conspirare is one of America's leading vocal ensembles, and it's easy to hear why in these superb performances."
- Robert Levett, INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW
"Mesmerizing and sublime, O'Regan's music layers voices with brilliant intricacy and he deftly combines airy melodies and subtle dissonances to a powerful effect. "
- Jeanne Claire van Ryzin, AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
"Threshold of Grammy?...this is a recording worthy of attention. A single listen confirms...that this choir and composer are exquisitely matched. Conductor Craig Hella Johnson and his company of voices have the skill to voice all the colors in O'Regan's richly varied musical palette: the densely clustered voices that pull at one another in tense dissonance here and resolve in sumptuous harmonies there, the rhythms that rocket a song along or ease it into a blissful peace. Moreover, they have a feel for the material, for its drama and intensity and the deep spiritual dimension at its foundation. This is one meditation on mortality that's thrillingly alive."
This re-defines contemporary music and modern choral performance.
Judging by this disc, 'Conspirare' is the finest choir working today and O'Regan the most individual composing voice.
It's a perfect match. This is GRAMMY material - don't wait for the awards though!"
If there are angels, they sing like this
nkc | NC | 01/06/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is a must-have CD. It is no wonder the Conspirare choir has again received a couple Grammy nominations for a CD. Their perfection is uncanny. And the spirituality of this music is both soothing and unsettling."
Fabulous Choral Recording
ABF | Austin, TX USA | 12/08/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Conspirare (Craig Hella Johnson and Company of Voices) draws out the soul of the music and lyrics and makes it the listener's own."
Track Listings (11) - Disc #1