As always I was keen to visit the choir, both to meet them in person and to see how they sound, so I travelled from the ‘Far East’ (Lincolnshire) to the ‘Wild West’ (Devon) back in January to try out some initial ideas. They are an excellent Chamber Choir, led by the wonderful Roland Smith and were really open to experimenting with some unusual sounds, particularly one where their instruction was to sound as much like a ring of church bells as possible! We tried ‘Bong’s, ‘Ding’s and ‘Dong’s (all of which didn’t really work) before settling, somewhat to my surprise on ‘Bing’s which sounded great…
One of the reasons I wanted to experiment with this sound is that the part of North Devon where the Winkleigh Singers are based has a strong and unusual tradition of change-ringing on church bells, reflected in both the choral and organ writing in the new piece. The other is that one of the carols which have inspired the piece, indeed the first one heard, is Ring on Sweet Bells. As a folk musician and singer myself, I was aware of a strong carolling tradition in Devon and started to investigate whether there were any carols that were truly local to the choir. Thanks to the marvellous work of Landkey Sings and Wren Music[ii] I came across the Landkey Carols. The Landkey carolling tradition was started in 1892. Singers and musicians would travel around the villages for two weeks over Christmas singing a unique collection of carols, some of which were quite well known with others composed specifically for the group by a Mr Gully (and others). Led by Mr John Darch from the Old Mill singers learned by standing next to an elder and listening and until recently only one carefully guarded copy of each carol existed. With the advent of TV and double glazing the carol singing tradition died out in the 1970s, with the revival project being established in December 2017. If you would like to know more there are some wonderful personal stories on the Landkey Sings website[iii] https://www.landkeysings.co.uk/ I was immediately drawn to both the provenance and the carols themselves. By a series of coincidences, (as is so often the way in our music-making community) the Musical Director’s partner plays in an orchestra with one of the people involved in the continuation of the Landkey Carols and the three of us enjoyed a lively and productive discussion about which carols were ‘pure Landkey’, i.e. not found anywhere else and these have become the inspiration at the heart of this ten minute piece for SATB choir and organ. The piece is coming on well, it has at its heart four of the carols with a voice part being the ‘custodian’ of each carol, for example the Basses are usually the singers for the melody of Ring on Sweet Bells whilst the Altos lead in Blessed is He, the third part. As always when working with living source material I feel the challenge and the satisfaction is in creating something new whilst respecting the original. I firmly believe that the melodies and lyrics must be clearly recognisable and clearly heard throughout and my job is therefore to colour them in a different way through vocal sounds, organ motifs and some unexpected harmonic and rhythmic twists whilst maintaining their heritage and integrity. After its premiere in it will be published by Composers Edition and we very much hope that it will go on to become a part of the choral repertoire. The Winkleigh Singers, (directed by Roland Smith) tried out some early sketches a couple of weeks ago and the recordings of these have been really helpful in developing the piece further. It really is a lovely piece to be asked to write, combining many of my favourite things, carols, folk music and a lovely choir open to new ideas! The piece will be premiered in St Michael’s Church, Great Torrington, (with its Willis organ (no relation) considered by some to be ‘the finest organ in the West Country’[iv]) on Saturday 14th December 2024 at 7:30pm with organist Gus Orchard who accompanied the Winkleigh Singers at their first ever concert on 8th December 1984.[v] The choir is fund-raising for this commission and if you would like to support them please visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/raise-funds-to-commemorate-our-40th-anniversary [i] https://composersedition.com/ [ii] https://www.wrenmusic.co.uk/ [iii] https://www.landkeysings.co.uk/ [iv]https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/church/st-michael-all-angels-great-torrington#:~:text=The%20Willis%20organ%20is%20finest,Torrington%20famous%20in%20her%20novels. [v] https://www.winkleighsingers.org.uk/future-concerts/
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AuthorAlison Willis is a composer and musician based in the East of England. Archives
May 2024
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