Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

There are three good reasons why this new release deserves our attention. First: it is on the Naxos label which means it is released at a budget price without any compromise on quality. Second: it is number one in the series so we may reasonably expect the best to come first. Third and perhaps most importantly, the choir is the excellent Elora Festival Singers, from Elora in Ontario, led by Noel Edison so we know that what we hear will be what the composer intended us to hear. Indeed, if you enjoy contemporary choral singing the fact that this CD comes from Elora should be enough to encourage to hear it. Julian Wachner (born 1969) is from Hollywood, California, was a boy chorister at the St Thomas Choir School in New York, earned his Doctorate in musical arts at Boston and has had a long association with Leonard Bernstein's Tanglewood Foundation. These brief notes barely begin to do justice to his varied CV but I hope tell you that this is a talented young man with an interesting biography and, Lord willing, much more to come. Already he has more than eighty published works to his name and here we get a good selection of both sacred and secular. We open with three poems by e e cummings (1894-1962: the poet who did not use punctuation) with the title "Sometimes I Feel Alive". These certainly get our attention which, sadly, is lost in the next sequence of "Rilke Songs" with words by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) although I confess that I have no sympathy for the works of Rilke or German poetry in general and so am not the best reviewer to ask. Moving swiftly on we reach the sacred section with an "Introit For The Season Of Epiphany" (text from The Book Of Common Prayer'), "Arise, My Love" (from The Song Of Songs) "Come, Thou Fount Of Every Blessing" (words by Robert Robinson), "Ave, Dulcissima Maria" (Twelfth Century Latin), "Missa Brevis" (more Latin), "Aaronic Benediction" (from Numbers 6), and "Behold The Tabernacle Of God" (from Revelation). This is an interesting selection of texts, all of which have been set appropriately and sung well. Any choir director looking for new material would do well to make the better acquaintance of Julian Wachner and those of us who enjoy contemporary choral music will eagerly await volume two.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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