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Improvisation: Liturgical

Ah, the Ordinary Time.  I really enjoy these particular chants.  On a rather humorous note, I did some excellent improvs (better than the ones in today’s video) all because Sr. Agatha Ozah showed up to Mass.  I told her following the Mass, “Well, I figured that since you showed up to Mass, I better show off.”  Sr. Agatha is quite the chant scholar, so she very much enjoyed hearing the chants improvised upon.  Nothing particular to note about these improvisations, except that I have a rather long reach with my hands.

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Composition: Sacred Choral and Organ

Today’s post is actually a back to back comparison of two pieces based on the Huron Carol, aka ‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime.  Denis Bédard, my former teacher, wrote a wonderful little setting of it for the organ.  I always thought that it would sound great as a choral piece, by that I mean, Denis’ setting morphed into a choral piece.  So when the English translation of the carol came into public domain, I wrote a choral version of the piece with a Denis sound in mind.  Granted it has a few of my favorite tricks, but there are some egregious Bédard sounds that I put into the work.  Good composers borrow, great composers steal!

Denis Bédard’s Noël Huron:

My choral setting of ‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime