Christmas Musicals for Church
Issue link: http://read.jwpepper.com/i/674779
N O T E F R O M T H E A R R A N G E R When describing my own wholly original music, I often suggest that its inherent eclecticism is a result of my various cultural, religious, and experiential influences, which have helped me create a unique hybrid of style and flavor. Similarly, with this new collection of Christmas Carol arrangements, one can immediately recognize my years of singing as a boy chorister with Dr. Gerre Hancock at St. Thomas Fifth Avenue, my conducting work with John Williams and Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops, and my years writing and performing 1980's style pop/rock— grand gestures stand alongside the gentle and mysterious. These arrangements aim to be fun, spiritually fulfilling, rewarding to perform, and a delight and thrill to hear. Many of these works were arranged for the annual service of Lessons and Carols at Boston University's Marsh Chapel. Later, the Canadian Broadcasting Company com- missioned me to create several arrangements for the CBC's Annual Christmas Sing-In broadcast from The Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul in Montreal. The most recent arrangements stem from The Washington Chorus's annual run of Christmas Candlelight Concerts at The Kennedy Center where several thousand audience-members sing along with the Washington Chorus and National Brass. Most of these arrangements were conceived for professional brass players to accompany a large singing audience or congregation with support from a proficient choral ensemble with organ and percussion and, in their original full instrumental form, they are at their most suc- cessful. However, this current collection presents these works in additional versions that may be performed with solo keyboard, either organ or piano. To this end, the keyboard reductions are meant to be guidelines for performance, and players should approach them as they would a pia- no reduction to an oratorio or opera, i.e., without too much stress to try to play all of the notes all of the time! In addition, in order to accurately reflect the full instrumental versions of these arrangements, the reductions are very complete; but, as with any solo keyboard presentation of this type, players should use their judgement in their realization, both in terms of registration for the organist, or use of pedal and level of density for the pianist. A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S I would like to thank Anthony Furnivall for his arrangement of "Amazing Grace", which was the very first hymn brass arrangement I encountered, having participated in its premiere at Chautauqua as a boy chorister at St. Paul's Cathedral in Buffalo, New York. I'll never forget the thrill of the brass entrance for the final verse! In addition, none of my music would exist without the tutelage of Dr. Gerre Hancock, who taught me to improvise and allowed me to steal many of his very best tricks and techniques. Other recognitions include Dr. Robert Watts Thornburg, who hired me at the age of twenty to lead the music at BU's Marsh Chapel, requiring that I com- pose something new each week, including some in this collection; Kelly Rice, Senior Producer at the CBC who helped shape the theatre and "sing-ability" of the arrangements; John Rutter, who taught me the limits of what brass could, and should, do; Brian Jones, for insisting that I find simpler solutions to complexities—forcing me to be efficient and clean; and to the many conductors who have supported, commissioned, and championed my choral music: Scott Allen Jarrett, Jennifer Lester, Thomas Colohan, Christopher Jackson, Andrew Clark, Robert Sund, Ann Howard Jones, Jordan De Souza, Michael Zaugg, Donald Teeters, Fred Jodry, Peter Kra- sinski, David Carrier, and the incredible Wayne Riddell. —Julian Wachner 8 For Preview Only