Catalogue

Summary:

“This is impressive. A largely contemporary, contemplative and often complex programme is performed with exceptional poise by the girls’ choir and harpist Cheryl Ann Fulton. Sungji Hong’s mesmeric Lux Aeterna is the pick of several highlights”. – ★★★★★ BBC Music Magazine

“Jennah Delp Somers has fashioned an impressive program with iSing … If more communities had this kind of program for young people, that fosters connections but cedes nothing of musical excellence, think of what America’s support for the arts would look like. Recommended” – Sequenza 21/

love & light celebrates the 10^th anniversary of the inspirational girls choir iSing Silicon Valley, and features a diverse range of sacred music from Hildegard of Bingen to James MacMillan, new works by South Korean Guggenheim Fellow Sungji Hong, multi-disciplinary composer Kenyon Duncan, and many more.

iSing Silicon Valley, the inspirational Bay Area-based girls choir, emerged from the darkness of the pandemic to find love & light in this recording of sacred music both ancient and new, music that transcends and heals, with glorious sonorities by turns rapturous and haunting.

iSing’s spirit of diversity shines through on love & light. From O Sapientie, the ecstatic chant by Hildegard of Bingen to Sir James MacMillan’s gravity defying Os Mutorum, Lux Aeterna by South Korean Guggenheim Fellow Sungji Hong and chorea lucis (dance of light) by California-based multi-disciplinary composer Kenyon Duncan – and many more – every work on love & light recalls an emotion, instinct or value that came to feel significant, even urgent, during the separation imposed during the pandemic.

iSing’s collaborators on love & light are virtuosa harpist Cheryl Fulton, and the versatile GRAMMY Award winning, soprano Estelí Gomez (Roomful of Teeth).

love & light is released in celebration of iSing’s 10^th anniversary.

Tracklist:

JAMES MacMILLAN (b. 1959)
1. Os Mutorum 4.13

GABRIEL JACKSON (b. 1962)
2. Ubi Flumen Praesulis 4.48

HILDEGARD OF BINGEN (1098–1179))
3. O Virtus Sapientiae 3.24

KILE SMITH (b. 1956)
4. Monstra Te Esse Matrem 4.31

SUNGJI HONG (b. 1973)
5. Lux Aeterna 6.24

ANONYMOUS
6. O Maria, Stella Maris 4.03

ANONYMOUS, 14^th-century English. Translation, E.H. Sanders
7. Salve Virgo Virginum 2.36

INCHCOLM ANTIPHONER (c. 1340, Scotland)
8. O Columba (chant arr. for harp by Cheryl Ann Fulton) 2.35

ANDREW SMITH (b. 1970)
9. Ave Regina Caelorum 1.40
10. Ave Maria 2.35
11. Regina Caeli 2.57

KILE SMITH
12. Psalm 7.04

KENYON DUNCAN (b. 1996)
13. chorea lucis 7.01

iSing Silicon Valley, choir
Jennah Delp Somers, conductor

Producer: Dan Merceruio
Recording Engineers: Leslie Ann Jones, Dann Thompson, Robert Gatley
Editing: Dan Merceruio | Mixing and Mastering: Daniel Shores
Recorded at Mont La Salle Chapel, Napa, CA, May/June 2022
Published by Boosey & Hawkes (01); MusicSpoke (03, 12); Musikforlagene (09–11); unpublished (02, 05, 13)