Choral

for SATB choir (2024)

Duration: 2'

Programme Note:

Contort, squeeze, expand is the nature of this miniature. Rhythms rub and interlock with eachother, and dissonances become your friend. Strings explores the onlooking of movement, with folk influences appearing in the squeeze passages where material becomes denser, and a more traditional “choral sound” appears in the expand-ing passages. I didn’t want this albeit short piece to ever feel fully at rest. Even at the final cadence the music urges you to listen on for something that will never arrive, at least not in this world.

Text:

Strings by Bee McQueen (b.1998)

Strings stretch my limbs

In all directions

Contort, squeeze, expand this consciousness

Squashed into a meat-sack

Stumble, I try to

Cut the strings

I am Velma

Looking for her glasses

Scared to lose my strings

They've remained so long

They're my limbs now

for SSAA choir (2024)

Duration: 6'

Programme Note:

Again, in this piece, I wanted to continue to explore the world of my choral music via the setting of Requiescat by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). The harmonic world of this piece is akin to much of my work, ebbing and flowing gently leading to more tumultuous passages. I wanted to take a lot of sensitivity to the text I used, and particularly hooked onto the first words of the first and third lines, using them to tie the piece together. In my first choral piece, I explored the idea of rebirth, where here I had the opportunity to explore grief after death. A new world opened to me here, my techniques taking on a much simpler, considered sound, the space and breath in my music becoming just as vital as sound itself. I sought to incorporate moments that were so quiet they bordered on silence. This dark, murky, grey spot between silence and sound that must be tread so gently that it is easily broken.

Text:

Requiescat by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Tread lightly, she is near 

Under the snow,

Speak gently, she can hear 

The daisies grow.

All her bright golden hair 

Tarnished with rust,

She that was young and fair 

Fallen to dust.

Lily-like, white as snow, 

She hardly knew

She was a woman, so 

Sweetly she grew.

Coffin-board, heavy stone, 

Lie on her breast,

I vex my heart alone 

She is at rest.

Peace, Peace, she cannot hear 

Lyre or sonnet,

All my life’s buried here, 

Heap earth upon it.  

for SSATB choir (2024)

Duration: 3' 30"

Programme Note:

This piece was originally written for the National Center for Early Music's 2024 Young Composer’s Award, and workshopped and performed at the NCEM by Ex Corde.

Inspired by the choral and vocal writing of Lili Boulanger, Thomas set out to write a piece with a similar tumultuous atmosphere, claustrophobic harmonies and sudden, dramtic shifts in tone. This piece is set to a text by Jacob Gallus (1550-1591) titled Mirabile mysterium from where the title of Thomas’ work comes from. The text, as shown below, depicts the arrival of God on earth as man. Thomas was particularly fond, however, of the text “Mirabile mysterium declaratur hodie, innovantur naturae;” which appears frequently in this piece as a kind of chant, echoing many early forms of vocal music.

Thomas was also deeply inspired by the work of contemporary composer Arvo Pärt and utilised Pärt’s “Tintinnabultion” technique throughout this piece to create the dense, yet resonant harmonies.

Text:

Mirabile mysterium (A wonderous mystery) by Jacob Gallus (1550-1591)

Mirabile mysterium declaratur hodie, innovantur naturae; Deus homo factus est; id quod fuit, permansit,
et quod non erat, assumpsit,
non commixtionem passus neque divisionem.

A wondrous mystery is declared today,
an innovation is made upon nature; God is made man; that which he was, he remains,
and that which he was not, he takes on,
suffering neither commixture nor division.