Centrediscs have recently released a CD of music by Toronto composer Colin Eatock.  It’s a mix of choral and  orchestral works; most of the former for unaccompanied voices.  There are ten works on the disc making a generous 67 minutes or so of music.

The first piece is Ashes of Soldiers for soprano, clarinet, harp and strings.  It’s a Walt Whitman setting and almost certainly the first piece of Colin’s music I ever heard.  It’s still I think my favourite.  It’s both elegant and elegiac and has a really interesting clarinet part (played here by Kornel Wolak.  The soprano part is nicely sung by Lynn Isnar and it’s lovely to hear her again.

This is followed by a series of settings mostly on religious themes for choir, with or without soloist.  The first though, The Lord is Risen, also has an effective trumpet part.  It’s not really my kind of music.  Unaccompanied choral music, especially when it cleaves pretty close to what I think of as the “Anglican tradition” and which Colin describes as “tonally fluid chromaticism” has to be really stunning to grab my interest.  These pieces are well crafted but just not really my bag.

I did like the last of the choral pieces though.  Out of My Deeper Heart sets a poem about a rising bird by Khalil Gilbran and it has a really interesting solo cello part representing the bird and played beautifully by Paul Widmer.  All the choral works are performed by the predictably excellent Soundstreams’ Choir 21 directed by David Fallis.

The final piece on the disc is a three movement Sinfonietta for chamber orchestra.  It’s quite short; 15 minutes or so, but I really enjoyed it.  The first movement is melodically and rhythmically interesting with lots of energy and some unexpected twists.  The, longer, second movement is slow, lyrical and quite mysterious and things wrap up with an enjoyable, boisterous rondo which is colourful and fun.  It’s nicely played by Sinfonia Toronto conducted by Nurhan Arman.

The recordings, made on a couple of different occasions at Humbercrest United Church, are well engineered and clear.  The CD is available as a physical CD or as MP3, standard res or 48kHz/24 bit FLAC.  I listened to it as hi-res digital.  There’s a useful booklet with composer’s notes and full texts.

Catalogue number: Centrediscs CMCCD 31023