Renaissance Reimagined Composition Competition: Winner Announcement
Cambridge choir goes global to find their winning piece
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A setting of the beautiful vision of a broken world made whole, and the striking imagery through which this vision is portrayed, has been chosen as the winner of the first ever composition competition held by the New Cambridge Singers (NCS). The piece entitled Then the angel showed me the river… which sets a descriptive excerpt of the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation, is the work of Paul Newton-Jackson. He secured the coveted prize of £500 and his work will be premièred in Cambridge and London in April 2017. Competition for the prize was intense, with 50 entries from amateurs and professionals all over the world, including Italy, Finland, the USA, New Zealand and the UK, and from composers ranging in age from 19 to 90!
The brief for the composition was quite unusual, requiring a five-minute piece scored for four part mixed chorus, five-piece Renaissance brass ensemble, and to add an extra challenge, a chorus for the audience. The choir reached out far and wide to find entrants – using social media, and approaching specialist music schools, universities, conservatoires, composers, festivals and music publishers. Born in Hamilton, New Zealand, Paul has been composing since the age of 10. On being awarded a Girdlers’ Scholarship, he moved to the UK in 2014 to study music at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Paul’s music reveals many diverse influences, ranging from medieval polyphony to modern rock and metal. In addition to composing, Paul plays percussion, piano, bass guitar, and sings with the choir of Corpus Christi College. Delighted to be named the winner, Paul said of his experience of writing the piece, “I love writing music which responds to a certain style or period, and in this case particularly enjoyed composing a piece which takes Renaissance vocal polyphony as its point of departure. The scoring of SATB chorus, audience chorus and five-piece Renaissance brass consort made for an exciting brief, yet also yielded plenty of challenges. I was especially inspired by the vast range of textures and dynamics enabled by such an ensemble, and worked hard to take full advantage of this.” |
The composition competition is an integral part of the New Cambridge Singers’ flagship programme, Renaissance Reimagined, for their 2016/17 season. Then the angel showed me the river… will be performed alongside an important new commission, Everybloom, written by distinguished composer Giles Swayne. Taking words from Joyce’s Ulysses, this work is written for choir, soloists and a consort of viols. The concert programme will also include Tallis’ extraordinary 40-part motet Spem in alium alongside works by two other Renaissance masters: William Byrd and Orlande de Lassus, thus spanning over five centuries of choral music. The audience chorus, in addition to singing in the winning composition piece, will also take part in Tallis' famous canon Glory to thee, my God, this night, thereby sharing our experience of making music old and new.
Commenting on the winning piece, judge and NCS Music Director Graham Walker said, “I found the winning entry a most carefully and thoughtfully structured piece, with a clear sense of development and arch. Its motifs, each interesting in its own right, are woven together with great skill, and the overall effect will be highly effective. The writing for the audience chorus was unique among the entries, involving some aleatoric (randomly performed) chanted sections, though these are sensibly judged, given the short rehearsal time.” He continued, “NCS has a long and proud tradition of commissioning new works and championing current composers. Past commissions have included pieces by Peter Maxwell Davies, David Bedford, Kelly Crandell, Christopher Brown and Rory Boyle. We are delighted that our first ever composition competition has been such a success and were able to reach out to so many composers from around the world. We are also extremely grateful for the support received from Arts Council England’s Grants for the Arts.” 
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