SKU: A0.1494974

A new arrange for SATTB of this catchy, brilliant song. Paul Smith wrote this arrangement for the VOCES8 Foundation concerts happening with VOCES8, Apollo5, the VOCES8 Scholars and Lyyra around the world in the 2024-25 season.

A version for voices and string orchestra also exists. You can find out more about Paul and the VOCES8 Foundation at www.voces8.foundation.

SKU: A0.1291044

“Alexander L’Estrange is a great and innovative arranger, surely one of the best we have around.� — Music Teacher Magazine 

“Alexander L’Estrange’s delicious arrangements go naughtily off-piste and the King’s Singers Great American Songbook CD is superb.� — The Times

Alexander L’Estrange and Joanna Forbes L’Estrange are prolific composers and arrangers of choral music, both individually and as a partnership. Receiving commissions from choral societies, schools, chamber choirs, church choirs and a cappella groups, their music is sung and enjoyed throughout the world. 

Alexander is regularly commissioned to write arrangements for world-class vocal groups including Voces8, The Queen’s Six, Amarcord, The BBC Singers and The King’s Singers, for whom he wrote and produced the Great American Songbook album. Joanna began writing music and lyrics during her tenure as soprano and Musical Director of the five-time Grammy® Award-winning vocal group The Swingles. 

All of Alexander and Joanna’s compositions and arrangements come with excellent learning resources for choirs including part-learning tracks and backing tracks, professionally recorded by the couple in their home studio #OldStableStudios. They also offer expert coaching for choirs, both in person and online. Their popular workshop You can sing…but can you swing?! gives choirs the tools to perform pop and jazz arrangements with greater style and confidence.

CONTACT:
Website www.lestrangemusic.com

Enquiries info@lestrangemusic.com

To be the first to hear news from L’Estrange Music, follow them on facebook, twitter and instagram 

This arrangement features simple, classy and accessible a cappella writing that will suit many mixed a cappella, chamber choirs, school and high school groups, with a 6-part SSATBarB scoring. This heart-string-tugging Holiday classic, one of the stand-outs on the King's Singers' 2016 release Christmas Songbook, is now available for you to sing. 

N.B. This is a HIGHER KEY adaptation of Alexander L'Estrange's original arrangement for the King's Singers (a 6-part male voice group); the S(A)ATBarBarB King's Singers version is sold separately.

SKU: A0.877462

Alexander L’Estrange is a great and innovative arranger, surely one of the best we have around. - Music Teacher Magazine

Alexander L’Estrange’s delicious arrangements go naughtily off-piste and the King’s Singers Great American Songbook CD is superb. - The Times

Alexander L’Estrange and Joanna Forbes L’Estrange are prolific composers and arrangers of choral music, both individually and as a partnership. Receiving commissions from choral societies, schools, chamber choirs, church choirs and a cappella groups, their music is sung and enjoyed throughout the world.

Alexander is regularly commissioned to write arrangements for world-class vocal groups including Voces8, The Queen’s Six, Amarcord and The King’s Singers, for whom he wrote and produced the Great American Songbook album. Joanna began writing music and lyrics during her tenure as soprano and Musical Director of the five-time Grammy® Award-winning vocal group The Swingles.

All of Alexander and Joanna’s compositions and arrangements come with excellent learning resources for choirs including part-learning tracks and backing tracks, professionally recorded by the couple in their home studio #OldStableStudios. They also offer expert coaching for choirs, both in person and online. Their popular workshop You can sing…but can you swing?! gives choirs the tools to perform pop and jazz arrangements with greater style and confidence.

CONTACT

Website www.lestrangemusic.com

Enquiries info@lestrangemusic.com

To be the first to hear news from L’Estrange Music, follow them on facebook, twitter and instagram

This arrangement features classy jazz a cappella writing that will suit experienced chamber choirs, school and high school groups, with a 6-part SSATBarB scoring. The song is a classic jazz standard by Jerome Kern and was commissioned by The King's Singers, who recorded it on their album of Alexander L'Estrange's close-harmony arrangements Great American Songbook https://www.kingssingers.com/products/great-american-songbook/. N.B. This is a higher-key adaptation of Alexander L'Estrange's original arrangement for the King's Singers, with mixed-voice SSATBarB choirs and a cappella groups in mind.

SKU: A0.809179

For Unto Us a Child is Born from Messiah an oritorio by German-born English composer George Frederick Handel.
This chorus from part one of the Messiah is fugal and taken from Handel's Italian cantata No, di voi non vo' fidarmi.
Performance time 5:50.
This movement is particularly popular for performance during the
Advent, Christmas and Easter festivals.

SKU: MQ.9239-E

English.

A stunningly beautiful setting of Clairel Estévez's poem. Recorded by Voces8, this a cappella work for advanced choir evokes images of love within the broader universe.

SKU: A0.1171219

Christopher Tin is a contemporary composer who is best known for his choral piece called Baba Yetu.  With an impressive educational background in music composition, English literature, and art history, his compositions come to life with like nothing that I've experienced before. It is simply some of the most beautiful and expressive music I have ever heard.  

The Lost Birds is a musical memorial to bird species driven to extinction by humans.  Tin’s soundtrack is a fantastic work of art, with its soaring musical phrases that make you feel like you’re flying. 

The Saddest Noise is a choral piece, with its lyrics taken from Emily Dickinson’s poem, “The Saddest Noise, the Sweetest Noise,� which talks of the relationship between beauty and grief. 

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise, 
The maddest noise that grows, 
The birds, they make it in the spring, 
At night’s delicious close. 
  
Between the March and April line 
That magical frontier 
Beyond which summer hesitates, 
Almost too heavenly near. 
  
It makes us think of all the dead 
That sauntered with us here, 
By separation’s sorcery 
Made cruelly more dear. 
  
It makes us think of what we had, 
And what we now deplore. 
We almost wish those siren throats 
Would go and sing no more. 
  
An ear can break a human heart 
As quickly as a spear, 
We wish the ear had not a heart 
So dangerously near. 
  
The Lost Birds soundtrack was sung by the choral group, Voces8, who made the music and poetry come to life in a way that not many other groups could.  It is simply beautiful. 

This arrangement is scored for flute choir – 4 C, alto, bass, and contrabass.  There is an optional cello part that doubles the contrabass.  This is not a strict transcription - I added moving parts and changed/added notes to make it of more interest as an instrumental piece.  I hope you like it. 

Duration: 3.5 minutes.

SKU: A0.1253868

This piece was my submission for the 2023 VOCES8 Composition Competition. 

It is set to George Byron's ethereal poem She Walks In Beauty.

Running time: Approx 3m30s.