The Singapore Symphony Children’s Choir celebrates its 10th anniversary with the launch of its first CD. Taking inspiration from Rodger and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music, which embodies the spirit at the heart of every choir, And I’ll Sing Once More is a compilation of some of the SSCC’s favourites, ranging in style from the renaissance to the contemporary, reflecting the varied repertoire of the SSCC.
Gems of the standard choral repertoire are represented by Lassus, Mozart, Saint-Saëns and Casals. Lively contrasts come in the form of Aguiar’s pulsating setting of Psalm 150, imitating the strumming of guitars, Fine’s spirited Father William, and Chilcott’s highly effective marrying of the Latin mass text with the jazz idiom. The work of local composers is showcased in two songs that were commissioned to commemorate the SSCC’s first major milestone. Similar to the contemporary ballads of Hisaishi’s Kimi-o—no-sete and Schwartz’s For Good, Lee Chin Sin’s A Child’s Voice celebrates the wonderful voices that make up the choir, which encompass the whole spectrum of the aspirations and imaginative richness of our next generation; voices that are delicate yet determined, varied yet united, bold yet nuanced. Water by Chen Zhangyi takes on a contemporary musical language, inspired by the unblemished quality of the poem.
With the SSCC celebrating its 10th birthday in the same year as Shakespeare’s 400th, it seems only appropriate to include Rutter’s It Was a Lover and His Lass, with text from the Bard’s As You Like It.