Chapel Choir: Reframed

The King’s Chapel Choir presents a new weekly music series, featuring performances and reflections on various genres and topics.

Almost two years into a global pandemic, the King’s and chapel communities remain very much alive. The King’s Chapel Choir, though displaced and separated, is no different. We are, as we have always been, musicians and students with a passion for making and sharing art. Chapel Choir: Reframed is the product of this. The goal of the project is simple: to produce a weekly series of videos, audio files, and other reflections that showcase the choir’s diverse talents and perspectives; and in doing so, continuing to reach past the four walls of the chapel, in a time of great distances. Genre and topic will vary, this goal will not.

With this project, the Chapel Choir seeks to create spaces for connection and artistic expression - amidst, despite, and in celebration of the world beyond the chapel. Thank you for joining us.

Please contact the Chapel Administrator if you’d like to be put on the email list for this project.

The Flower sung by the Chapel Choir - Chapel Choir Reframed

The Flower sung by the Chapel Choir.

Music by Gabriel O'Brien, Organ Scholar, University of King's College.

Text by George Herbert (1593-1633)

How fresh, oh Lord, how sweet and clean

Are thy returns! even as the flowers in spring;

To which, besides their own demean,

The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.

Grief melts away

Like snow in May,

As if there were no such cold thing.

Mary Louise Belyea performs "Ach Ich Fuhl's" from The Magic Flute by Mozart - Chapel Choir Reframed

“Ach Ich Fuhl’s” from The Magic Flute by Mozart

Performed by Mary Louise Belyea, accompanied by Garth MacPhee

Translation:

Ach, ich fühl's, es ist verschwunden, Ah, I feel it, it has disappeared Ewig hin der Liebe Glück! Forever gone love¹s happiness! Nimmer kommt ihr Wonnestunde Nevermore will come the hour of bliss Meinem Herzen mehr zurück! Back to my heart! Sieh', Tamino, diese Tränen, See, Tamino, these tears, Fließen, Trauter, dir allein! Flowing, beloved, for you alone! Fühlst du nicht der Liebe Sehnen, If you don't feel the longing of love So wird Ruh' im Tode sein! Then there will be peace in death!

Yanik Gosselin Covers "Heroes" by David Bowie - Chapel Choir Reframed

For this series, I chose to offer a cover of the song "Heroes" by David Bowie. Although Bowie's lyrics tell the story of lovers separated in wartime, I believe they also express a universal feeling of hope and the possibility of greatness in all of us.

And Am I Born To Die - Chapel Choir Reframed

My arrangement of the traditional spiritual And Am I Born To Die, the melody of which comes from shape note books under the title Idumea, the lyrics from a hymn by Charles Wesley (1707-1788) in his book Hymns for Children.

Kip Johnson

The Blackest Crow - Chapel Choir Reframed

My rendition of the Appalachian song The Blackest Crow (also know as My Dearest Dear and The Time Draws Near)

Kip Johnson

Simon Blake Plays Bass Guitar - Chapel Choir Reframed

My name is Simon Blake, and I've been singing in the Chapel Choir for a bit over seven years. Music for me has always been an essential source of catharsis, and in the Chapel, I've found a second home, a space of for that integral personal expression, and a host of music that channels the feelings that are the hardest to release.
During covid, the importance of that catharsis has become all the more apparent - in our more silent stretches of time, I definitely felt pent-up, like something necessary was missing. I've been playing bass for longer than I've been singing, and rediscovered the importance of that when choral stuff was a no-go.
This video is a bit of me playing a chord progression that was helpful to me over the last year or so. I'm a big fan of resonance and especially dissonance, so there's lots of that here. This is what I play to settle myself, so it's very self-soothing (and self-indulgent) - I hope a bit of that comes across and brings some peace to you.

Gabriel O'Brien Plays Franck's Pièce Héroïque - Chapel Choir Reframed

My name is Gabriel O’Brien, and I am a third-year music student and the Organ Scholar at King’s. My involvement in the King's music scene long predates my time as a student, as I grew up singing in Capella Regalis Men and Boys Choir, which at the time was based in the King’s Chapel. My introduction to the organ was through the chapel, when I was asked to play for the small weekly Sunday service. I had to learn and play three hymns every week, and as a young pianist who was brand new to the organ, that was a lot of material for me to cover. Because I had to spend so much time focusing on preparing these hymns each week, it took me a while before I ventured into learning proper organ repertoire. When I finally did, however, it was through J. S. Bach’s Eight Little Preludes and Fugues. These short pieces served me well for a couple years, but I was so set on learning only Bach and nothing else (a trap that many young organists fall into), that I regretfully missed out on a whole plethora of music, especially the great Romantic French organ repertoire. César Franck’s Pièce Héroïque was one of the first pieces of this repertoire that I fell in love with. I think that I was particularly drawn to it for two reasons. First of all, as a beginner organist I was attracted to the grandeur of the instrument, and as its title would suggest, Pièce Héroïque does not disappoint. It had that sense of majesty that I loved, but was starkly different to the Bach that I had been playing. Even more appealing to me, however, was Franck’s use of chorale. A chorale is a simple tune, usually sung (although in this case, it is played) and harmonized in four or more parts. Pièce Héroïque’s second theme appears once in the middle of the piece as a soft and tender chorale, and again at the end of the piece as a triumphant chorale. Because I had spent so much time playing hymns, this chorale theme seemed very familiar, yet new and exciting. After many years of listening to the piece, it wasn’t until quite recently that I actually took the time to properly learn it. And in doing so, I rediscovered all the reasons that I fell in love with it in the first place, along with so much more.

In ordinary times, pieces like this would be regularly played in the chapel every week, but given the current circumstances, no in-person choral services are being held. To that end, I would like to offer a small glimpse into what one might hear in the chapel on a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon. Here is my recorded performance of Franck’s Pièce Héroïque on the Létourneau, Opus 76 organ at St. George’s Round Church in Halifax. I hope you enjoy!

Youtube Link

Erin Haliburton speaks on the interrelation of Baroque church architecture and music

This essay, originally written for ARCH 3107: Modern Settings, Buildings & Landscapes, explores to what extent Italian architects in the Baroque period sought to design churches with the acoustic needs of choirs in mind.