‘To Everything, a Season’ from Of Time and Passing (Mixed Voices)

Of Time and Passing (2016) is a cycle of three choral songs written specifically for the London-based ensemble, VOCES8, taking into consideration their versatility and ability to beautifully intone a range of vocal colors with precision and grace.

Programme Note
 

II. To Everything a Season capitalizes on VOCES8’s ability to effectively interpret popular genres a cappella. This ancient text is taken from Ecclesiastes (dated around 300 B.C.) but I set it to a modern, rhythmically-regular and percussive pop-style idiom. Since popular music in whatever era is designed to appeal to a specific “present time”, it is by its very nature ephemeral, and therefore seemed an apt metaphor to evoke the transitory nature of seasons.