Jury comment

It is representative of what we desired in a winning submission this year: a well-crafted piece of choral music reflective of the impact of COVID and political division in 2020. It is a beautiful choral work with sensitive vocal writing, word painting, and text setting. I know for certain that each singer in Camerata will enjoy rehearsing and performing “Above Gravity”, and that is the ultimate litmus test for me!

Trevor Kroeger, Artistic Director, Cincinnati Camerata

Notes from the composer

In the winter of 2017, photographer Bob Gathany of the Huntsville (AL) Times captured footage of a dazzling effect called murmuration—a display of birds creating fluid formations in air, seeming to defy laws of nature. The effect shows how birds form synchronized waves which in turn allow them to better communicate food sources, and offer protection as they fly en masse.

See the video here on YouTube:
“Mesmerizing murmuration of blackbirds caught on camera“

Julie Cadwallader Staub’s poem “Blackbirds” captures this image in words—”the whole flock taking a long, wide turn, as if of one body and one mind.” What if nature were our teacher in this case? How do we rise above the gravity of self-absorption, of division? How would our current world be different if our first priority was not our own freedom or well-being, but the good of others? I am grateful to Julie for her permission to set her poem, and feel humbled and honored that the Cincinnati Camerata will first bring this piece to life.

Congratulations to the 2017 Camerata Composition Prize winner, Anthony Esland! His winning entry “Winter” caught the ears of our jury with its lush, romantic harmonies and sensitive text setting. A short excerpt follows, along with comments from the composer.

(Read more about the Prize and its past winners here.)

Excerpt of winning composition

The excerpt recording was provided by the composer.

Comments from the composer:

How did your work on “Winter” begin? What inspired it?

I discovered Walter de la Mare’s poem “Winter” quite by chance. I mentioned to a friend that I was looking for poems to set for SATB choir and he suggested de la Mare’s poetry. I read a book of his collected verse and was immediately taken with the imagery in “Winter”, with its bleak and harsh world; I thought it would lend itself well to word-painting and subtle harmonic movement.

What aspects of the text led you to structure the musical setting as you did?

The text has a chronological timeline, starting with a robin singing alone on a ‘leafless bough’ and ending with the dark gradually drawing in. This narrative seemed to suggest a throughcomposed structure rather than strophic and I therefore tried to tell a story through my music, as de la Mare does with his poem, so that the listener feels as though they’ve been on a journey by the end of the piece. I used divisions for all of the vocal parts at various points to help generate a richer, more sonorous quality, and there are moments in the text, such as ‘on fields in leagues of beauty spread unearthly white’, where I deliberately tried to create an aural impression of a vast landscape.

Your background in Organ and then expanding into scoring for film / TV is interesting. How has that affected your writing style in works like “Winter”?

I trained as an organ scholar at Cambridge University and I’ve worked with numerous choirs of all abilities and ages since my student days, so choral music is in my blood. I’ve branched out into writing music for film and TV over the last few years however and I have a Masters in composing for film and TV from the National Film and Television School in the UK. I think my film and TV composing has given me a looser, more intuitive way of writing than I had previously, but I think the end result is often the same with film and choral music – as a composer you’re always striving to engage the audience and tell a story.

Winner Bio:

Anthony Esland is a prize-winning composer for stage and screen, writing music across a broad range of styles – from cutting-edge electronica to cinematic orchestral music. He has scored several films, TV shows, documentaries and games in the last few years, recently collaborating with double BAFTA-winning editor, Mark Towns, and Icelandic recording artist and Broadchurch composer, Ólafur Arnalds. Anthony is currently writing his first feature film score and composing tracks for several production music libraries.

Anthony is increasingly in demand as a concert music composer, with several commissions to his name. His music has been performed by ensembles such as the BBC Singers and he has received bursaries from the BBC, the PRS for Music Foundation and the Oppenheim-John Downes Memorial Trust; he is currently a London Symphony Orchestra Soundhub Associate and Bliss Trust Award holder. Performances of Anthony’s concert music scheduled for 2018 include premieres of a choral piece, a five-movement organ suite, a work for two pianos and a song cycle.

Anthony studied music as an organ scholar at Cambridge University and conducting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama; he recently graduated from the National Film and Television School with an MA in Composing for Film and TV.

You can find out more about Anthony’s work by visiting his website: www.anthonyesland.com