National Youth Choir of Great Britain - Young Composers 4 (2023)

The latest release in our annual partnership with National Youth Choirs of Great Britain (NYCGB) presents a new anthology of choral works by four talented, rising-star composers; Sun Keting, Thomas Metcalf, Ben Nobuto, and Claire Victoria Roberts.

These new works are the product of NYCGB's yearly Young Composers scheme, which comprises of an intensive schedule of full choir workshops, composing sessions with the NYCGB Fellowship Ensemble, and tutorials with distinguished composers and mentors. The result is a selection of engaging and thoughtful new choral music, as four unique compositional voices respond to the theme of 'environment'.

British/Japanese composer Ben Nobuto is inspired by ancient sun gods, and muses on the choir as an ecology, where multiple things happen simultaneously that are at once distinct, yet symbiotic. Sun Keting's music combines Eastern cultural, spiritual and philosophical elements, inspired by the beauty of the natural world, ancient Chinese tribal dances and mountain songs. Claire Victoria Roberts sets two poems by Emily Dickinson, using choral textures to reflect the nuances of human connection, and representing 'hope' as a restless bird with hand claps and jagged rhythms. Thomas Metcalf's surreal interpretation of the climate emergency sets texts and haikus generated by feeding words such as ‘environment’, ‘climate’, ‘endangered’ into an AI poetry-writing application, and explores ideas including ‘artificiality’ and 'eco grief'.

"The sheer imagination and ingenuity of our young composers, stimulated by this year’s theme of ‘environment’, is a constant source of enjoyment and engagement, not only for those of us who guide and mentor them, but equally to the choir members, who are actively immersed in the creation of these new pieces." Ben Parry, NYCGB Artistic Director & Principal Conductor.