Monday, Oct 3, 2016
Hole in the Sky, a new recording of the Westminster Williamson Voices, conducted by James Jordan, has been released by GIA Publications. Recorded last winter in Bristol Chapel on the Westminster campus, the recording explores many choral sound worlds, from Ola Gjeilo’s Spheres and Mendelssohn's Veni Domine, to She Weeps Over Rahoon by Eric Whitacre and the "Kyrie" from Tomás Luis de Victoria's 1604 Requiem. It also includes works by Westminster alumni: And Dream Awhile by Blake Henson ’05 and As I Walk the Silent Earth by Thomas Lavoy ’13. It’s available at most major recording outlets, including Amazon.com and iTunes, beginning on October 14, and through pre-order now.
“Certain music, certain composers, and certain performances have a way of "tearing a hole" into our spiritual core, deepening our lives and perhaps even bringing new meaning to what we do and how we live,” Jordan writes about the recording. “Gerard Manley Hopkins called that place our ‘Inscape.’ The music for this CD has that common thread in that all the pieces, in some way, provide an illuminative hole, through both sound and text, into perhaps a deeper understanding of life and living.”
One of Westminster Choir College’s select ensembles, Westminster Williamson Voices has been lauded by reviewers and audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Gramophone magazine has praised the ensemble’s “intimate and forceful choral artistry” with a tone that is “controlled and silken in sustained phrases as they are vibrantly sonorous in extroverted material.” American Record Guide praised the ensemble as “without peer.” Nominated for a 2013 Grammy® award for its recording of James Whitbourn’s Annelies, Westminster Williamson Voices is in residence each summer at Westminster’s Choral Institute at Oxford.
James Jordan has been praised throughout the musical world as one of America’s pre-eminent conductors, music psychologists, writers and pedagogical innovators in choral music. His more than 40 books explore both the philosophical and spiritual basis of musicianship, as well as aspects of choral rehearsal teaching and learning. His book Evoking Sound was praised by the Choral Journal as a “must read.” Professor of Choral Conducting at the Westminster, Dr. Jordan is also director of the Westminster Conducting Institute and co-director of Westminster’s Choral Institute at Oxford. A comprehensive listing of his publications and recordings can be found here.