Sowash: "For the Blessings of the Field",大地恩賜, two parts a capella.

Every day since Harvard University was founded -- on September 8, 1636 -- there has been a worship service on campus. Today, these take place in the Appleton Memorial Chapel, where my friend Carson Cooman is the composer in residence.

The Harvard University Choir sings in every service.  They have only twenty minutes to rehearse, just prior to the service. ..  There are plenty of pieces for SATB choir but composers after the Renaissance have written very little two-part choral music.  In 2010 Carson invited me to compose two-part motets for the choir.

He stipulated that the motets must:

-- employ texts that suitable for worship,

-- be approximately 2.5 minutes long, 

-- be musically interesting yet simple enough to be prepared in a single 20-minute rehearsal. 

Limitations inspire, channeling the stream of creativity into a narrow gulch.  To date, I've written about 45 motets for the Harvard University Choir and I am happy to say that many of them have been sung in worship services at Appleton Memorial Chapel.  I have since expanded some of these into four-part anthems or instrumental chamber works.

Carson kindly records these performances of my motets, enabling me to share them with you.

To hear the men of the Harvard University Choir singing one of these motets, "For the Blessings of the Field," an appropriate text for Thanksgiving weekend, click here:    

http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/blessings.mp3

To see a PDF of the score, click here: 

http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/blessings.pdf