(By the courtesy of John Armitage Memorial Trust and the Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge. Shared with permission.)

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Programme Notes:

“There is nothing new under the sun.”

Whilst many composers have attempted in composing their setting for Psalm 150, the approach taken by the composer in this piece is one that echoes with the two choral classics chosen by the Hong Kong Oratorio Society for its 60th Anniversary Diamond Jubilee Concert. Thrived by the British musical traditions, the composer chooses not to differentiate his piece from those who had attempted but decided to further enrich the beauty of this biblical text in its purest form.

Laudate Dominum adopts traditional harmony as its major vocabulary for continuing the practice of Western composers. However, its irregular harmonic syntax resembles the approach taken by many modern composers in 20th century, such as Britten. (Coincidently, Britten also studied at the Royal College of Music before). With British fanfare and homophonic choral singing, the choir praises the glory and power of the Lord. The two contrasting polyphonic choral sections are accompanied by continuous harmonic progression for endless praising phrases. At the end, all choir singers call on the breath of the Earth and pass through the firmament with their individual aleatoric passages. Alleluia, may the name of Lord be praised and hallowed.