Paul Stanhope
Paul Stanhope writes chamber and choral music charged by landscape and light: sea, rainforest, dawn and open space. His scores for voice, strings and choir balance precision with verve, and he has shaped that sound from the podium as well as the page.
Sea Chronicles sets soprano against string quartet with a keen ear for weather and distance. Geography Songs, drawn from Michael Dransfield, move from gutter to rainforest and carry a spiritual sense of the natural world. Dawn Lament for solo viola takes its cue from an Aboriginal poem and sits among the elegies that suit the instrument’s mellow middle voice. He has also written for clarinet and piano, compact vocal chamber pieces, and sacred choral works such as Ubi caritas that feel both original and usable. As conductor of the Sydney Chamber Choir he has given lucid, confident readings of recent Australian choral scores, including substantial programmes of Clare Maclean.
Paul Stanhope 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.
Compositions by Paul Stanhope also appear on
Mass of the Dreaming
It is remarkable that 2016 brought the first recording by an Australian choir devoted entirely to Australian sacred choral music. This disc fills that long gap with newly commissioned and recent works.
Kingfisher
This CD is the result of a daring project to commission 21 composers to write new works for Halcyon's two singers, Jenny Duck-Chong and Alison Morgan. Presented over two concerts in their 15th anniversary year, and then recorded at Trackdown.
Still Life: Australian Music for Viola
This is the third solo viola disc on Tall Poppies, and one of the few such albums ever issued in Australia. Patricia Pollett is widely regarded as among the country’s finest musicians, and the violist who has done most to draw new works for the instrument.
Landscape's Creatures
A collection of recent Australian choral music, mostly by younger composers. It is good to see that choral writing is alive and well in Australia. Each work makes a strong statement, with a variety of choral techniques and styles.
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