19 December 2006
Bismarck, North Dakota
Bismarck High School Chorus and Orchestra / Laura Prokopyk

SA, strings

5.5'

Traditional

The tune that serves as the (substantially varied) basis for this work is by Cecil F. Alexander, ca. 1848.

Over dinner in September of 1996 at Vince and Eddie’s, a cozy little bistro on 68th Street here on the Upper West Side, Robert Schuneman — who was at the time my publisher at E.C. Schirmer, and who was then starting a record label called Arsis Audio — pitched to me the idea of creating a CD full of Christmas choral music sung by the American Repertory Singers, but with accompaniments done in studio as is normally the case with pop music. ‘Mind you,’ he said, putting on his Producer cap, ‘something very creative, but really different from the usual classical Christmas fare.’

It was only September, but I was already dreading the impending seasonal onslaught of looped, overlapping ‘Frosty the Snowmans’ and ‘Jingle Bell Rocks’ and he knew it. I quickly said yes, once we agreed that I would aim to take the listeners on a resolutely ‘non-commercial’ musical journey, one in which I frequently only alluded to the original centuries-old tunes already more than familiar to them.

The original 'reinterpretation' of the famous carol Once in Royal David's City was made during December of 1996 at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and premiered, in recording sessions at the Cathedral Church of St. Matthew the Apostle, Washington, DC on 20 April 1997 by the American Repertory Singers, conducted by Music Director Leo Nestor, Robert LaRue, cellist. This arrangement was made during the winter of 2006 in New York City.

I hope that the contemplative and intimate musical space created by this carol in performance together fulfills the function of helping each of us to reconnect at this important time of year with the reason they were created and sung in the first place.