Paul Somers

Treble.
In a new setting of Bouzignac's Noe! Pastores, composer Paul Mack Somers drew up inspiration from composition styles of Bach and attention to venue from Gabrieli to pen this three part antiphonal motet. Written to emerge from various locations within the church it is being performed in, the narrator (SSTT) is in one transept balcony, and Gabriel (AABB) is in the opposite transept balcony. The shepherds below by the altar were, of course, SATB. 
PROGRAM NOTES Conductor Garyth Nair (1943-2013) sent me Noe! Pastores by Guillaume Bouzignac (c. 1587 – c. 1643) and asked me if I would compose a new setting of the text for the 1985 Christmas concerts of the Summit Chorale. Seeing its use of Narrator, Gabriel, and Shepherds as "characters", my mind instantly conjured Bach's three narrative works and Giovanni Gabrieli's dramatic use of San Marco's and the Scuola Grande di San Rocco's spaces in Venice. It was evident how well this text would work as a three part antiphonal motet. I knew the location of the performance, St. Rose of Lima in Short Hills, NJ, had, like San Marco, two transept balconies and a large space at floor level in front of the altar. Then there was the organ and its pipe locations. What a sonic layout!As I composed the music during that summer, mostly sitting under our big beach umbrella on the 58th Street beach of Ocean City, NJ, I heard the piece emerging from the various locations within the church. I included hand bells for their mellow, yet percussive, effect. Orchestral chimes work, too.The narrator I called Evangelist in the baroque manner, and instead of Bach's lone tenor, used all choral high voices, SSTT, in one transept balcony. Gabriel, being a male, became AABB in the opposite transept balcony. The shepherds below by the altar were, of course, SATB.It turned out to be too large a piece for the Summit Chorale alone, so Nair invited another chorus he conducted in Plainfield, NJ, called M.U.S.I.C. Inc, to join in. Together there were around 50 singers placed in the three widely spaced locations.Every work on the program was by a living New Jersey composer.

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