Last week's High Mass for Trinity Sunday featured the premiere of a brand-new work commissioned by the choir to mark Wesley Warren's retirement as music director.
The choir chose Stephanie Martin, a professor of music at York University and the former music director of St Mary Magdalene in Toronto, to complete a setting of Psalm 150, a favourite text of Wesley’s. Stephanie in turn chose a setting of the psalm by the Elizabethan poet Mary Sidney, noting in an email that “Psalm 150 is of course a composer's ideal text since it evokes so many different instruments, moods and modes of praise. Musically I borrowed some renaissance gestures – lively dance music vs stately organ music – to bring the words to life.”
Following its premiere the new piece joins several other pieces by the composer already in the choir library, including a setting of Ave Verum Corpus and a mass for three voices. Of her new piece, Stephanie remarked, “I hope you have a great time singing it and that you can give Wesley a splendid send off.”
Click play on the audio player below to here a short excerpt Psalm 150.