Wednesday 5 September 2018

A 90th birthday present: Thea Musgrave's Rorate Coeli videoed live in New York



In May I chatted to composer Thea Musgrave, via Skype [see my interview], on the eve of a celebratory 90th birthday concert which was being given at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York, on 27 May 2018. 

One of the items in the concert was Musgrave's challenging choral piece Rorate Coeli, setting a pair of poems by the Scottish makar poet William Dunbar [1459/60-1530]. Rorate Coeli is a terrific piece, which I have sung a couple of times and which certainly deserves to be better known. It was written in 1973, a commission from the National Federation of Music Societies and premiered by the Thomas Tallis Choir in Greenwich, UK.

At the birthday concert on 27 May 2018, the work was performed by The New York Virtuoso Singers, conductor Harold Rosenbaum. The performance was caputured on video and is now on YouTube.

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