Andrew Gray Here
Voces Boreales is starting an amibtious project : the recording of Path of Miracles by Joby Talbot. This recording will be used in an interactive, multidisciplinary installation. Details will be unveiled soon.
Why Path of Miracles?
It isn’t often that a new masterpiece comes along for a cappella choir. Only time can tell if a work will be considered a masterpiece, one that will be taken into repertoire by choirs around the world and performed by generations hence. We can imagine that Poulenc’s Figure humaine, Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden or Rachmaninoff’s Vespers might once have been greeted thus.
My two cents
In Joby Talbot’s Path of Miracles, we might well have another such work. I certainly can’t think of another recently written work for a cappella choir that is so beautifully composed, so virtuosic, so profound, so thrilling. As a conductor, one of the most important indicators as to whether the work merits repeated performance is whether it keeps revealing more and more of itself each time. As a singer, I have performed Path of Miracles maybe a dozen times; I have conducted it at least ten times; I have spent countless hours in rehearsals studying the score. Thus far, like any great work, it has continued to reveal itself at the musical, structural, academic, historical and emotional levels. As with the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage, Path of Miracles is a journey in itself—a challenge, an inspiration, a transformative experience.
About Path of Miracles
Throughout Path of Miracles, listeners walk along the camino francès—“Way of the Franks”—with pilgrims. It connects Roncesvalles along the France–Spain border with Santiago de Compostela on the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The four movements of the work are Roncesvalles, Burgos, León, and Santiago; they serve as steps and markers along our route.
