Oliver Tarney: Magnificat Serafine Chamber Choir & Manvinder Rattan

• Oliver Tarney (b. 1984): Magnificat:
• 1Magnificat: I. Magnificat04:19
• 2Magnificat: II. Et Exultavit03:46
• 3Magnificat: III. Quia Respexit04:04
• 4Magnificat: IV. Ecce Enim04:22
• 5Magnificat: V. Quia Fecit04:39
• 6Magnificat: VI. Et Misericordia06:51
• 7Magnificat: VII. Fecit Potentiam04:23
• 8Magnificat: VIII. Deposuit04:13
• 9Magnificat: IX. Esurientes04:45
• 10Magnificat: X. Suscepit Israel04:18
• 11Magnificat: XI. Sicut Locutus Est05:04
• 12Magnificat: XII. Gloria Patri03:35
• Total Runtime54:19

Info for Oliver Tarney: Magnificat

In this newly-commissioned work in 12 movements, Tarney has interpolated the conventional text from the Gospel of Luke with apocryphal and old Testament texts as well as extracts from the Book of Maryam from the Qur’an. The fuller picture this paints completely changes the way we think of this important bible story and Tarney sets the whole with memorably exquisite musical colours which bow to no one. In a world riven with division and violence based on religious lines, this piece reminds us of what we could have in common if we looked a little harder.

Mary was about 16. As many traditional images show, she may have been working at her spinning wheel, minding her own business, when the Angel Gabriel appeared to her and told her the news that she was with child. Not only that, but her son was God, and would grow up to be the saviour of mankind. I can’t help but feel that ecstatic jubilation was probably not her first response. Many settings of the Magnificat present the text as though Mary is saying it there and then, as an outpouring of joy and wonder, which it doubtless is, with jubilant brass and clattering timpani. I, however, have opted for a different direction to this story: one in which we hear the words of the Magnificat as a considered, personal reflection, rather than a spontaneous outpouring, as Mary replays that moment in her mind, but now in the light of the events that followed—many of them full of uncertainty, and pain. ...

Serafine Chamber Choir
Serafine Sinfonia
Manvinder Rattan, conductor

Manvinder Rattan
is Chief Executive Officer and Head of Conductor Training at Sing for Pleasure. He oversees all the charity’s activities, which include a wide range of courses, publications and singing events for adults and children, and he leads a team of tutors who teach around 200 conductors a year. The accredited conductor training programme which he steers is a graded scheme that has the capacity to take conductors from their very first downbeat all the way through to advanced work with a substantial choir and orchestra, using its renowned teaching syllabus and supportive, pro-active teaching style.

An expert choral and orchestral conductor, Manvinder has been Musical Director of the John Lewis Partnership Music Society since 1995. Having inherited one choir, the society now has over 18. It also has an orchestra, rock band, and Music Tuition Service on two sites; they gave over 25 performances last year. In addition, he is Musical Director of Serafine Chamber Choir and Sinfonia, with whom he released the premiere recording of Oliver Tarney’s Magnificat in 2015.

Freelance engagements also keep him busy, with numerous guest conducting, teaching, singing and adjudicating engagements in the UK and abroad. In 2012, Manvinder was a judge for ‘The Choir’ with Gareth Malone, focussing on singing in the workplace and he recently performed as soloist in ‘The Armed Man’ at the Albert Hall with Brian Kay.

Serafine Chamber Choir
is made up of some of the most talented young conductors in the country, all of whom have been taught by director, Manvinder Rattan. Serafine is made up of professional singers, teachers and students, all of whom share a passion for high quality music making as well as their own love of conducting. The Sinfonia is made up of both seasoned and young professional players, along with students from the London conservatoires.

Serafine enjoyed an illustrious debut performance in July 2012 at the Grosvenor Chapel, London, performing a programme of Bach and Handel in the company of Lucy Crowe, Tim Mead, Robert Murray and Matthew Rose and players from the OAE and the Academy of Ancient Music, raising over £2000 for the charity Songbound.

This album contains no booklet.