Keeping hymns real and relevant

Your favorite hymns, including Christmas carols (which have already started to play on high rotation in shops and shopping malls), are probably around 200 years old. Which places them smack bang at the height of the Victorian colonial expansion era.  I think the death and reporting of the funeral of QEII shone a spotlight on […]

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Tomorrow I will be

I have wanted to perform these works by the modern composer Nico Muhly (b. 1981) for some time now. The O Antiphons have a special and specific role in preperation for Christmas. Seven songs for seven nights before Christmas Eve. The Antiphons form the Latin acrostic ‘Ero cras’ meaning ‘Tomorrow I will be’, these antiphons […]

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Cabanilles and me: a journey

For some reason the music of Juan Cabanilles (1644–1712) hit a chord with me, in that strange post/mid-covid opening up of Victoria (Australia) during Lent 2021. I think it was the expressive virtuosity of his music, littered as it is with references to the past mystery of modes, and the deeply personal, that compelled me […]

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‘Instruments of reflection’

I love this picture in the hallway of St. Peter’s Parish Centre, where I am Musical Director and organist. Hallways are often used for rushing from one place to another, usually to the loos which are at the end of our hallway. This picture always slows me down. The reflection of the sky in the […]

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