Be Joyful! – a twenty-year anniversary

Twenty years ago this spring saw the first performance of my choral work Be Joyful! in the beautiful and sonorous space of Ely Cathedral. The 4-5 minute piece was commissioned by the National Association of Choirs, and performed by the massed choirs of the NAC Eastern Region (Group 20) conducted by Peter Davies.

It was designed so that it could be performed by SATB, SSAA, or TTBB choirs – and choirs of all three types were combined to make a choir of over 200 singers for this first performance; subsequently it has been performed by individual choirs of different types with organ, and, on one occasion, with a full military band accompaniment.

Earlier this year I was honoured to be a guest at the National Association of Choirs Annual conference in Kendal, where I introduced the delegates to a range of my music, including this piece, which is expected to be featured in their concert later in the year.

Here is a link to a digital recording of the version with wind orchestra.

Here is a link to a live recording of the first performance.

I hope you enjoy the recordings! Although it has been unpublished for some time, the scores of all three versions (and the wind orchestra version too) are now available via this website, and pdfs / digital downloads are available from Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus.  Please visit this page for further details.

One thought on “Be Joyful! – a twenty-year anniversary”

  1. Greatly appreciated these recordings. Rather unfortunate that the earlier sung version was made in such a resonant building so that much fine detail is lost. But a fine festal piece all the same of which I shall appraise my cathedral musician friends. It deserves resurrection!

Comments are closed.