Awed Light Its Chant Entrances (2019)

Date of composition: 2019; Duration: 10’00; Commissioning body: Dartington International Summer School & Festival; Premiere performance: 23 August 2019, Dartington International Festival, UK; Premiere performers: Joanna MacGregor/Dartington International Festival Choir; Publisher: Eleanor Alberga

“I was delighted to write a piece for Dartington, performed by the amazing pianist Joanna MacGregor. I knew that Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’ was being heard on the same day, and so the idea behind the work was nature and a connection to Dartington. Joanna introduced me to Alice Oswald’s work and I was very inspired by her poems. The words are what drives the music. Dawn is proclaimed and there are contrasts of dreamlike states, reality, excitement, in that world between sleeping and waking, between mystery and knowledge. The piano sections are full of birdsong and ecstatic joy at the arrival of sunrise. Messiaen said that the birds sang because they were amazed at the light.”

Eleanor Alberga, 2019

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Instrumentation:

Chorus (SSAATTB), Piano