Ave Maria
Composer: Andrew Smith (*1970), 1997
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(UK, Norway) |
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AveWiki link |
| Posted on YouTube: Not available at
this time. |
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featured here!
If you (or your choir) perform this Ave Maria, make a video recording.
Post your video on YouTube, email me the page URL and I'll embed the video
in this page. |
You can also email me an MP3 for audio only. |
| Internet references,
biography information. |
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http://www.home.no/andrewsmith/biography.htm (May 1, 2012) |
Andrew Smith (b. 1970) grew up outside Liverpool, England, and in 1984 moved
with his family to a mountain village in central Norway. His musical
training began at an early age (both of his parents were music teachers).
Theoretical skills were encouraged from the start and Andrew wrote his first
compositions at the age of six. Three years of singing daily services in the
Chapel Choir of Birkenhead School provided him with a solid foundation in
traditions of Anglican sacred music.
Andrew continued to compose and play the organ throughout his teens, formal
music studies beginning in earnest in 1990 at the University of Oslo. In
1991 he became organist and choirmaster of St Edmund’s Church in Oslo, a
post which he has held for nearly 20 years. Although he has always felt that
composing is his true musical vocation, Andrew did not seriously begin to
consider a career as a composer until around the year 2000 when he wrote a
3-part setting of Ave Maria for the acclaimed Norwegian vocal group Trio
Mediæval. The piece went on to be a great success, heralding a fruitful
collaboration with the Trio which has to date resulted in several more
compositions for them, two of which were recorded for the Trio’s second disc
Soir, dit-elle (ECM New Series 1869), as well as numerous performances in
Scandinavia, Europe and the USA. Works commissioned by Trio Mediaeval
include Laudes Creaturarum, for the Trio and the Hilliard Ensemble
(performed at the Bergen International Festival, 2007), and Bruma
(Mid-winter) for improvising trumpet and three female voices, performed by
Arve Henriksen and Trio Mediæval at the winter chamber music festival in
Røros in 2008.
Through Trio Mediæval Andrew came into contact with the male vocal quartet
New York Polyphony who commissioned, with their musical adviser Malcolm
Bruno, two works for their début CD I sing the birth (AV 2141). The critical
acclaim with which this release was met encouraged the group to commission a
further four pieces for their follow-up disc Tudor City, due to be released
in 2010. Another project initiated by Malcolm Bruno, Mater Dei, combines
Smith’s music with Rainer Maria Rilke’s cycle of poems The Life of Mary.
Three different versions of the work have been performed to date, by the
Girl Choristers of Washington National Cathedral, New York Polyphony, and
The Norwegian Girls’ Choir with Trio Mediæval.
Andrew’s works, most of which are written for voices in various
combinations, have received numerous performances from choirs and other
ensembles in Norway, several of whom have commissioned works from him.
Publishers of his music include Oxford University Press, and Norsk
Musikforlag and Musikk-Husets Forlag in Norway.
Stylistically Andrew Smith’s music is a product of, among much else, the
Anglican choral tradition, with composers such as Tallis, Byrd, Herbert
Howells, and of more recent renown, James MacMillan, Tarik O’Regan and
Gabriel Jackson, as important sources of inspiration. The influence of
Gregorian chant is very much in evidence in many of Andrew’s compositions,
both in the form of melodic shaping and in the guise of a more general
aesthetic ideal. More recently, Norwegian folk music, which has a strong and
living tradition, has provided additional inspiration.
Andrew Smith is a member of the male vocal ensemble Consortium Vocale Oslo,
specializing in Gregorian chant. Since completing studies in Music and
English at the University of Oslo he has worked for the Ultima Oslo
Contemporary Music Festival and as organist and choirmaster at the English
church in Oslo. He is currently working as a composer, translator, and
choral music consultant for the Norwegian Choir Association. Andrew is
married and lives in Oslo, Norway.
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Page last modified:
May 01, 2012
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