Works by Millicent B James, Alex Tay, Will Harmer and Emily Hazrati
National Youth Choir/Emily Dickens; National Youth Choir Fellowship Ensemble/Ben Parry
NMC NMC DL3056 43:07 mins
Now in its fifth year, the excellent National Youth Choir Young Composers scheme supports a crop of emerging composers to write new works for this outstanding young choir.
Two fine works by Millicent B James bookend the album. Children of the Forest, the standout, explores the plight of those children who fell from ships as part of the Transatlantic slave trade, and the possibilities of magical rebirth through nature. This glorious work opens to shimmering textures and soft bird whistles, before the score shifts from lullaby to ecstatic celebration, which the choir rises to meet in this genuinely spine-tingling performance.
Will Harmer’s deft settings of Renaissance madrigal texts are very accomplished, from the spritely lilt of ‘Spring in All Her Glory’ to the succulent harmonies of ‘Sing We at Pleasure’, while his intricate Fireworks puts the choir through its paces in a fizzing exploration of the history and chemistry of these ‘hissing dragons’ of the sky.
Emily Hazrati demonstrates real imaginative flair. One Thousand Threads is inspired by Hazrati’s Iranian heritage and reimagines ‘a fraying Persian rug’ through sound, while the delicate khãné (meditations on home) is an affecting exploration of possible meanings of home.
In RainFlow’rs, Alex Tay conjures a mercurial flow of different moods through florid sonorities and creative use of breath. Elliptical, intricate and poignant, it is a work that demands to be listened to again and again. Opening to a wash of mobile phone samples, his DEEP (HUH?!) is a ‘teasing love letter’
to Generation Z. NYC delivers another enjoyable performance, even if they don’t always sound entirely in control of Tay’s unapologetically tricksy score.
A rewarding introduction to four promising young composers.
