Happy Advent! If you're looking for a musical gift to give your loved ones this season, let me recommend University of Oxford, Somerville College Choir's The Dawn of Grace: Music for Christmas. This is a beautiful and brilliantly-recorded album by the Somerville College Choir (directed by Will Dawes), with sensitive singing and a number of pieces that were a revelation to me. Did I mention it is entirely comprised of contemporary pieces by women? Super cool.
For this album, Somerville recorded my "Star of Rohini," which was commissioned by the Institute of Sacred Music (Yale University) and supported by Princeton University, and premiered by Yale's Voxtet (guest directed by Gabriel Crouch). "Star of Rohini" comes from a set of two pieces that draws parallels between the stories of baby Krishna and baby Jesus. This piece is connected to the Feast of Epiphany, and all of the wonder and mystery this event entails.
Somerville's recording of "Star of Rohini" is gorgeous, and I'm most grateful to them.
Equally, I loved listening to the rest of this album. Some of the pieces by my colleagues on here are knockout favorites of mine; others were a joy to discover. I encourage you to check this album out! It's available here if you'd like to gift it: https://www.resonusclassics.com/products/the-dawn-of-grace-music-for-christmas
And it's also on all of the usual streaming platforms.
Happy listening! Stay safe and be well this holiday season.
- Shruthi
P.S. And! If you want to hear Star of Rohini live, the Fourth Choir will be singing it in London on December 11 on the Strand, and Seattle Pro Musica will be performing it at their concerts in Washington state on December 10 and December 17! Meanwhile, Somerville is having an album launch concert on December 5 in Oxford.
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