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Reflections on the Year 2025

Looking back at 2025, it was an emotional rollercoaster of a year:

  • Great excitement in January as the second of my grandkids became a delightful addition to our family here in Toronto.
  • February brought sorrow, when I learned that Maggie Dace Hollis my old Vancouver friend from the 70s had passed away in 2013. We had lost touch with each other and didn’t have a chance to say goodbye, but I felt so blessed when I discovered that Beverly Glenn-Copeland had recorded a song (La Vita) with Maggie in 2004, a true blessing to hear her beautiful voice once again, as we used to sing together back in the day.

  • And March brought even greater sorrow when I learned of the passing of my Uncle Duncan (who was like a father to me). It happened just a couple of hours after we had had a long chat on the phone about his latest theoretical physics paper that he was working on. The completion of which is one of my most important and most meaningful activities for 2026.

  • May brought the celebration of life for my Uncle Duncan, beautifully organized by cousins Madeleine and Keith, and filled with wonderful reminiscences of this remarkable man who touched so many people.
  • Somehow, at the end of May I also managed to complete my 28th marathon at the Ottawa Race Weekend while also fundraising for OrKidstra. Sincere thanks to all my sponsors!

  • And May also featured a wonderful trip down memory lane, thanks to my intrepid chauffeur Paul Dixon, who managed to get us from North Van to Pemberton to Lillooet and back in one day, with a thousand images still dancing in my head, including never before seen vistas of my beloved “Black Tusk,” oh yeah!

  • The summer was uneventful, except for the fact that Toronto frequently had the worst air quality in the world, a sad reminder of the state of our planet these days.
  • Late summer and fall featured some of the most creative artistic designs that I have ever seen before, on my body! 😊 If you want to know what it was, check out these two “magical” words: pityriasis rosea.
  • Just as I was becoming “red spot free” I got the amazing news that Tom Morgan and his amazing Ars Nova Singers would be premiering my Mahler song arrangement and then singing it as part of a Voces8 concert in Denver! What an October experience that was, buckets of gratitude to Tom and his choir and Voces8.

  • Then in November an even more unique experience in my life, as Kari Turunen and his Vancouver Chamber Choir performed 19 of my songs at a memorial concert for my Uncle Duncan, held in my Aunt Pat’s home church. A special moment for me, my family and friends, never to be forgotten.

  • This was followed in December by some more unique musical moments.
  • Margareta Raab and her amazing Young Cathedral Voices at the Uppsala Cathedral again took my Polish Xmas lullaby arrangement of “Lulajze Jezuniu” on tour: to Warsaw and Krakow in Poland and then back to Uppsala in Sweden.
  • And then, Alvez Barkoskie IV and his wonderful choir at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Oklahoma City sang the North American premiere of my Brahms “Ave Maria” arrangement at one of their services.
  • Musically, there have been so many blessings this year, and so much gratitude to everyone who directed or sang my choral creations.
  • I still feel the heaviness and ongoing sadness at the loss of my Uncle, but I do feel blessed that he supported me so much in my “late in life” composing career, and got to witness so much of it.
  • And I hope that he might have been smiling just a bit (up there in the aether) when he heard the final song performed at his memorial concert, which was dedicated to him, “Good King Wenceslas”.

My wish for everyone who reads this is Good Health for 2026!

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A new song is born — Ging heut’ morgen über’s Feld (Mahler)!

Sincere thanks to Rocky Mountain Chamber Choir for this spectacular recording. For song description and sheet music, see below.

Description: As a lifelong fan of Gustav Mahler’s music, when I started my “late in life” choral composing project in my mid-60s, I knew that one day I would have to tackle one of Mahler’s songs.

And now, in my early 70s, I am excited to share my a cappella arrangement of one of Mahler’s most remarkable creations, “Ging heut’ morgen über’s Feld,” from his song cycle “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen” (Songs of a Wayfarer), which later became the opening theme of Mahler’s 1st Symphony.

“Ging heut’ morgen über’s Feld” is dedicated to my friend Elizabeth Gluckstal.

And for any choirs that might prefer to sing a happy ending to this song, I have created an alternate arrangement that leaves out the not-so-happy coda of the original song:

Sheet music (SATB div.): available at https://musicspoke.com/downloads/ging-heut-morgen-uebers-feld/.

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Reflections on 2022 – a “Renaissance” year for choirs, audiences and choral composers!

2022 was an eventful year for everyone, and for me personally, as I entered the 8th decade of my life and the 7th year of my crazy “late in life” choral composing project.

The covid pandemic still loomed large everywhere, and in particular for those in the world of choral music.

Matthew Larkin directing the Rideau Chorale in a December 3, 2022 concert in Ottawa.

Hesitant first steps towards in-person rehearsals and public concerts marked the first half of the year, which culminated in a massive outpouring of joyful, well-attended choir concerts in December, both here in Ottawa and throughout the choral world. And yet, the existential question of our age – to mask, or not to mask – could not be escaped, for both choirs and audiences.

Continue reading →

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A new song is born: The Lamb (William Blake)!

My newest song – William Blake’s “The Lamb” – is dedicated to my grandson Daniel, a wee lamb himself. It is a companion piece to my more intense choral creation, “The Tyger,” also based on a Blake poem. I invite you to have a listen and then continue reading below…

“The Lamb” appears in Blake’s poetry collection “Songs of Innocence” and there is indeed a child-like innocent quality to the poem, and also a spiritual questioning: “Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?”

Blake’s “The Tyger” appears in his collection “Songs of Experience” and explores the more terrifying energies that can be found in the natural, human and spiritual realms. It also asks a fundamental spiritual question, about good and evil: “Did He who made the Lamb make thee?”

A question for listeners. If the two songs were to be sung in sequence in a concert, which order works best for you:

  1. to sing “The Lamb” first, and then build up to an intense, terrifying ending with “The Tyger”; or
  2. to sing “The Tyger” first and end less intensely (and more optimistically) with “The Lamb?”

NB: to obtain sheet music for “The Lamb” (SATB div. or TTBB), visit: https://davidrainchoralcomposer.ca/songs/the-lamb-william-blake/

With thanks to my buddies in Quartetto al Volo for again rising to the occasion with this 4 part virtual choir recording.