Jamie Sansbury, Musical Director of the GSA Choir, reflects on the journey since the Composeher world premiere concert last May.
I am writing this just after the GSA Choir finished recording the last of seven new works composed for us as part of Composeher, a few days before International Women’s Day 2024. Now seems as good a time as any to take stock of the journey we’ve been on since we gave the world premiere concert of these commissions in May last year.
When we embarked upon Composeher many years ago, we had no way of knowing what the final outputs would be; we gave an open brief to the composers to allow each of them to respond in the way they felt suited them. This could have been, in hindsight, a risky strategy, but our faith in the talented artists with whom we have worked paid off. As the audience at our premiere concert heard, the works are truly incredible – at times joyful, moving, dramatic and exhilarating, but always beautiful.
The concert will, I suspect, always be one of my proudest moments with the GSA Choir, not just because of the thrill of performing – and the sense of achievement we all felt after the long rehearsal period which preceded it – but also because of the response from our audience: seeing people listening so enthusiastically to a programme of entirely new music was a very special experience indeed.
The seven pieces included a beautiful meditation on the death of a loved one; the birth of a child; a prayer for refugees and a paean to the natural world, and it was thrilling to see the reaction of those present to the range of contemporary perspectives explored by each of the works.
The recording process over the last four months, has provided another kind of thrill: getting even more intimately acquainted with the pieces and the composers’ intentions, and being given the opportunity to further refine the choir’s performances. Whilst performing the world premiere of a work brings with it a sense of responsibility – to convey the composer’s intentions as accurately as possible and give the audience a chance to fall in love with unfamiliar music – I have discovered that the recording process feels even more weighted. We are, after all, setting down these pieces in a performance that will last not just for one concert, but forever. It’s why recording sessions remain my favourite, but also most nerve-wracking of choir activities.
Recording sessions are long, vocally and emotionally demanding, and require a level of prolonged concentration. They require every one of the singers to be on top form at all times, or we risk having to start over. They are also hugely rewarding however, knowing we are making the first recordings of these pieces, and giving people a chance to hear them again and again.
Now the recording process is complete our producer, Andrew, can begin his task of mixing the final tracks. The singers have done all they can in the service of these pieces and must now wait until they are released to hear the fruits of their labours. Particularly with a choir as large as ours, it can be hard for individual singers to hear all the individual voice parts during a performance – sopranos can be standing a long way from the altos, for example – so I know hearing the ‘whole’ pieces will be a special experience for them all; hearing, for the first time, what the audience heard last May.
Once the world premiere recording is released later this year, we hope it will encourage other ensembles to programme and perform, if not all, then at least some, of the commissions, allowing even more people to hear the works. We are passionate about maximising the audience for these pieces in the future, and will be performing them again ourselves, not as a full programme like we did last year but including them in our various concerts in the years ahead.
The legacy of Composeher is not yet known, but the journey so far has been music-making at its best: exciting, challenging, rewarding…we hope – once the recording is released later this year – that our listeners feel that way too.