AN END

AN END

Love, strong as Death, is dead.
Come, let us make his bed
Among the dying flowers:
A green turf at his head;
And a stone at his feet,
Whereon we may sit
In the quiet evening hours.
He was born in the Spring,
And died before the harvesting:
On the last warm summer day
He left us; he would not stay
For Autumn twilight cold and grey.
Sit we by his grave, and sing
He is gone away.

To few chords and sad and low
Sing we so:
Be our eyes fixed on the grass
Shadow-veiled as the years pass,
While we think of all that was
In the long ago.

- Christina Rossetti

Recorded on:

Parlez-moi
Concerto Della Donna
Iwan Edwards, conductor

listen

AVE MARIA

"If your choir can't sing it you should hire two good sopranos to perform it just so your congregation can hear something as beautiful as this...This is beyond recommended."

-Rollin Smith,
The American Organist,
Jan., 2005.

Recorded on:

Garden of Delights
Amabile Youth Singers
John Barron and Brenda Zadorsky, conductors

listen

Recorded on:

Joy shall be yours
Ariose women's choir
Dr. Marilyn Kerley, conductor

listen

Ave Maria was a first prize winner in the first Biennial Composition Competition sponsored by the Association of Canadian Choral Conductors and their Associated Publisher, Cypress Choral Music.

Premiered by the National Youth Choir, Leonard Ratzlaff, conductor, at Podium 2000 in Edmonton, Alberta, Ave Maria has also received performances by such groups as Cantaré Children's Choir, Concerto della Donna, and Elektra.

AVE REGINA CAELORUM

Ave Regina Caelorum (Hail, Queen of Heaven) is one of the four ancient prayers collectively known as the Marian Antiphons. Together with the Alma Redemptoris Mater, Regina Coeli, and Salve Regina the four antiphons are assigned to a portion of the church year and sung folloing the evening Offices of Vespers or Compline. Ave Regina Caelorum is used from the Feast of the Purification of Mary (The Presentation of the Lord) on February 2, through the Wednesday of Holy Week. The origin of the Ave Regina Caelorum prayer is unknown but it appears in the Saint Alban's Book of the twelfth century.

Recorded on:

Parlez-moi
Concerto Della Donna
Iwan Edwards, conductor

listen

AVE VERUM CORPUS

"If this were by Gabriel Faure, it would be a classic. Fortunately, it probably will be. Talk about easy and effective!"

---Rollin Smith,
The American Organist,
JAN 2005.

AWAY IN A MANGER

A straight-forward arrangement of the beloved Kirkpatrick tune, suitable for church, school, and community choirs; also works well as a quartet.

DANNY BOY

Recorded on:

Parlez-moi
Concerto Della Donna
Iwan Edwards, conductor

listen

Listen to the SSA arrangement from Concerto Della Donna's beautiful CD (parlez-moi 2011).

DEEP RIVER arr.

Recorded on:

Let the Music Begin
Cantaré Children's Choir
Catherine Glaser-Clime, Founder/ Artistic Director

Deep River

Recorded on:

I am a Star
Hamilton Children's Choir
David Davis,
conductor

Deep River

America Sings!
The Cincinnati Boychoir
Randall N. Wolfe,
conductor

Recorded on:

Parlez-moi
Concerto Della Donna
Iwan Edwards, conductor

ECHO

ECHO

Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!

- Christina Rossetti

Listen to:
Allan Bevan's

Echo

from
THE MANITOU SINGERS OF
ST. OLAF COLLEGE VOL. 7

The Manitou Singers
Sigrid Johnson, Conductor

FULL FATHOM FIVE

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Hark! Now I hear them, - Ding-dong, bell.

excerpt from: William Shakespeare's The Tempest

GENTLE MARY LAID HER CHILD

                     

HARP OF WILD

Harp of Wild

Harp of wild and dream-like strain,
When I touch thy strings,
Why dost thou repeat again
Long-forgotten things?
Harp, in other, earlier days,
I could sing to thee;
And not one of all my lays
Vexed my memory.
But now, if I awake a note
That gave me joy before,
Sounds of sorrow from thee float,
Changing evermore.
Yet, still steeped in memory’s dyes,
They come sailing on,
Darkening all my summer skies,
Shutting out my sun.

--Emily Bronté

HIDE THY FACE

Psalm 51: 9-10

Hide thy face from my sin
And blot out all mine iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart
And renew a right spirit within me.

View

THE HURON CAROL (SATB)

Recorded on:

Balulalow
University of Alberta Madrigal Singers
Leonard Ratlaff, conductor

In Dulci Jubilo
The Choirs of Christ Church Cathedral Montreal
Patrick Wedd, conductor

HURON CAROL (SSAA)

Recorded on:

LISTEN
And On Earth Peace
Heruvymy Ukrainian Female Quartet

Recorded on:

Parlez-moi
Concerto Della Donna
Iwan Edwards, conductor

I GOT ME FLOWERS

I Got Me Flowers is the latter half of George Herbert's poem, Easter, selected from his collection of sacred poetry The Temple (published posthumously in 1633). Herbert was raised in a politically-ambitious and wealthy family, attended Cambridge and was an MP for two years. He gave this up in favour of the priesthood, serving at a small parish near Salisbury where he wrote much of his poetry.

Herbert is grouped together with other seventeenth-century "metaphysical" poets such as John Donne and Henry Vaughan (see Allan Bevan's Three Motets on Texts of Henry Vaughan). The "metaphysicals" are appreciated for their striking imagery and for their metrical innovations. I Got Me Flowers describes events of Holy Week and Easter in a personal manner. The "flowers to straw thy way" bring to mind Christ's triumphnat entry into Jerusalem, while the remainder of the poem concerns itself with Easter Day, declaring it incomparable amongst the "three hundred" other days of the year.

LOVE COME DOWN AT CHRISTMAS

MIRAGE

MON CLAIR DE LUNE (arr.)

Echoes, ten years of song
I Coristi Chamber Choir

Dr. Debra Cairns, conductor
www.icoristi.com

NOU GOTH SONNE UNDER WODE

Premiered in 2005 by Pro Coro Canada and the Pro Coro Chamber Orchestra, Timothy Anderson, narrator; Jolaine Kerley, soprano;
Richard Sparks, conductor.
Winspear Centre in Edmonton, Alberta

Pro Coro's 2007 performance was broadcast on CBC Radio 2, Choral Concert
Sunday, February 17, 2008.

Premiere Review:

"It was Mozart's Requiem that drew 1,700 people to Pro Coro's Good Friday concert, but it was the world premier of Bevan's Nou Goth Sonne Under Wode that propelled them to their feet at its conclusion, and for good reason.
...The choir, soloist Jolaine Kerley, narrator Timothy Anderson and a select group of Edmonton Symphony players delivered what sounded like it could be a definitive performance of this contemporary work...Anderson did a theatrically accomplished job of conveying the persona of Christ in His excruciating last hours and as raconteur of the gospel story about Jesus' physical and psychological torment on the cross...[The] Kyrie is technically masterful and moving...almost pastoral, as though the deity addressed were the great consoler...Bevan's orchestration is full of fine detail right down to some imaginative timpani parts..."

-Bill Rankin,
The Edmonton Journal,
March 27th, 2005.

********

The Composer's Guild's described Nou Goth Sonne Under Wode as, "A marvelous work...impressed by the intellectual and emotional breadth, [and] beautiful counterpoint." The "instrumental parts are haunting, the key relationships striking. What a piece!"

********

" The audience’s overwhelmingly enthusiastic response to Pro Coro Canada’s world-premiere performance of Allan Bevan’s ingenious composition certifies this work as a modern-day classic. You will not want to miss this performance!"

--Pro Coro Canada.

O LORD, INCREASE MY FAITH

This was composed in 1980 (rev. 1996), published 2002.
Allan Bevan's first choral work!

PEACE

The final number of Three Motets on Texts of Henry Vaughan, Peace was composed in 2001 and first sung and recorded on, My Soul There is a Country by the University of Alberta Madrigal Singers, Leonard Ratzlaff, conductor. Under assistant conductor, Ardelle Ries, Peace was part of the 2002 tour repertoire of the Madrigal Singers and was one of the choir’s submissions to the CBC Competition for Amateur Choirs.
This work was released by classica Music Publishers in the fall of 2004.

Peace was chosen from among 45 submissions by Canadian composers as the winning work in the 2002 Ruth Watson Henderson Choral Composition Competition, sponsored by Choirs Ontario.Recently, the "Mads" performed Peace at the ACDA convention in Los Angeles in February 2005.

 

SINGERS TO COME

Recorded on:

Singers to Come

Singers to come, what thoughts will start
To song? What words of yours be sent
Through man’s soul, and with earth be blent?
These worlds of nature and the heart
Await you like an instrument.

Who knows what musical flocks of words
Upon these pine-tree tops will light,
And crown these towers in circling flight,
And cross these seas like summer birds,
And give a voice to the day and night?

Something of you already is ours;
Some mystic part of you belongs
To us whose dreams your future throngs,
Who look on hills, and trees, and flowers,
Which will mean so much in your songs.

-Alice Meynell (1847-1922)
A Poet’s Fancies IX

THE ECLIPSE

Recorded on:

My Soul, There is a Country...

University of Alberta Madrigal Singers
Leonard Ratzlaff, conductor
listen to the University of Alberta
Madrigal Singers

Recorded on:

Songs of the Soul

I Coristi Chamber Choir,
Debra Cairns, conductor

Three Motets on Texts of Henry Vaughan
i. The Eclipse
ii. The Revival
iii. Peace

THE REVIVAL

Recorded on:

My Soul, There is a Country...

University of Alberta Madrigal Singers
Leonard Ratzlaff, conductor
listen to the University of Alberta Madrigal Singers

Recorded on:

Songs of the Soul

I Coristi Chamber Choir,
Debra Cairns, conductor

Three Motets on Texts of Henry Vaughan
i. The Eclipse
ii. The Revival
iii. Peace

THE SOULS OF THE RIGHTEOUS

This piece was composed in 1985 (published 2002) as a memorial for my father.

THE SOULS OF THE RIGHTEOUS

This work was written specifically for men's voices. It was composed in 2000 and has since been sung on numerous occasions by Chor Leoni of Vancouver.

"It is so appropriate that this piece dedicated to the memory of the composer’s father and set to a text from
Wisdom 3:1-3 be scored for men’s voices. The striking harmonies filled with richness of phrase gesture are uncanny. Bevan loves to change keys and seems to do it effortlessly. The range requirements for the men are reasonable but also expand into larger demands. The basses must have a solid C but at a triple piano. The tenors must be able to phonate a high a2 in the tenor range on a double forte. This composer obviously understands and is able to write for the voice in an uncanny fashion to bring the most out of his music. The harmonies and counterpoint are extremely effective. This lament to his father’s death has a universal language that touches everyone."

--"The Choral Room"
(Spring 2005)

*A SATB version of this TTBB setting was composed in 2000. It is not exactly the same and develops and ends differently.

THE TIME DRAWS NEAR THE BIRTH OF CHRIST

Text from Tennyson's
In Memoriam

The time draws near the birth of Christ:
   The moon is hid; the night is still;
     The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,
     From far and near, on mead and moor,
     Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind,
     That now dilate, and now decrease,
     Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,
     I almost wish'd no more to wake,
     And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

But they my troubled spirit rule,
     For they controll'd me when a boy;
     They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule.

THERE, IN THAT OTHER WORLD

Recorded on:

This commission from Ariose Women's Choir of Edmonton, Dr. Marilyn Kerley, conductor, was premiered on April 17, 2005.
In November 2005, the choir released a recording of the work. It sets a haunting poem by Mary Coleridge.

THREE MOTETS ON TEXTS OF
HENRY VAUGHAN

TO MORNING

To Morning

O holy virgin! Clad in purest white,
Unlock heav'n's golden gates, and issue forth:

Awake the dawn that sleeps in heav'n: let light
Rise from the chambers of the east, and bring
The honied dew that cometh on waking day.

O radiant morning, salute the sun,
Rouz'd like a huntsman to the chase, and with
Thy buskin'd feet, appear upon our hills.

-William Blake
from Poetical Sketches (1783)

TOI, MOI, TOUT UN MONDE (arr.)