Clare Maclean
Clare Maclean writes a cappella choral music of sinuous elegance and radiance, folding plainchant, Renaissance polyphony and Jewish liturgical melody into richly textured settings of sacred and poetic texts.
Years singing with the Sydney Chamber Choir taught her what voices can hold and how polyphony breathes. The Osanna Mass draws Gregorian Cum jubilo chant and Jewish liturgical melody into canons, clusters and cascading phrases that suggest bells and birdsong, with the Sanctus set in Hebrew as well as Latin. Shorter works move from Isaiah’s vision and a Sappho fragment to Roman catacomb inscriptions and Michael Leunig’s summer hymn. Modes and dense harmonies sit beside clear triads; silence and single lines open space after the thickest textures. The writing is spiritual without austerity, made for choirs who can live inside close intervals and still sound radiant.
Clare Maclean is featured on the following titles
Osanna
A second Tall Poppies disc of Clare Maclean’s a cappella choral music. Few Australian composers have built so sustained a body of unaccompanied sacred and poetic works, shaped by her faith and her years singing with the Sydney Chamber Choir.
Clare Maclean: Complete Choral Music
Maclean began her choral life as a singer in this choir, and her writing shows an intimate grasp of its style. The result is gorgeous listening: music inspired by the spiritual, and a distinctive voice amid the noise of contemporary composition.
Credit: Annotations