As one of America's exciting young composers, Dominick DiOrio is stretching the boundaries of choral music. In Alleluia, he explores the percussive qualities of the voice and the lyrical quality of the marimba and the result is an energetic and exciting new experience for all. Duration: ca. 6:00

Composer: Dominick DiOrio

As one of America's exciting young composers, Dominick DiOrio is stretching the boundaries of choral music. In Alleluia, he explores the percussive qualities of the voice and the lyrical quality of the marimba and the result is an energetic and exciting new experience for all. Duration: ca. 6:00

Arranger: Dominick DiOrio | Composer: Dominick DiOrio

Written for the 100th anniversary of the St. Olaf choir, this work is commensurate with ability of one of the great choirs in America. The music makes consistent use of divisi texture, expansive arcs of musical phrase, and coloristic harmonies that demand excellent intonation, balance, and blend - all hallmarks of the St. Olaf Choir sound.

Composer: Rene Clausen

Written for the 100th anniversary of the St. Olaf choir, this work is commensurate with ability of one of the great choirs in America. The music makes consistent use of divisi texture, expansive arcs of musical phrase, and coloristic harmonies that demand excellent intonation, balance, and blend - all hallmarks of the St. Olaf Choir sound.

Arranger: Rene Clausen | Composer: Rene Clausen

With a depth and emotional range comparable to art songs, spirituals have become a powerful and significant body of work in Western art music. This pairing of two songs displays a quality of emotional directness and a fascination with the broad palette of feelings, colors and ideas inherent in the music. Duration: ca. 6:30.

Arranger: Craig Hella Johnson

This musical setting of a contemporary text by J. Philip Newell celebrates self-awareness and openness to God's message. With subtle shifts in tonality and wide swings in dynamics, harmonic complexity and textual clarity, this piece requires a mature choir.

Composer: Tom Trenney

A profoundly beautiful poem speaks of life as a series of doors opening and of sighs unfolding, one upon another, rising on a tide of mornings. The music creates a peaceful atmosphere of unfolding sonority, until it fades away in the aleatoric final phrase. Duration: ca. 4:15.

Composer: Eric William Barnum

Craig Hella Johnson has become well known for outside the box programming, composing and arranging. Here is another great example. This folk song written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays in 1949 in support of the Progressive movement and later made popular by Peter, Paul and Mary is here arranged with a driving motif If I Had A Hammer by SATB divisi chorus. Hand percussion underpins this motif and the melody floats above. A powerful video of this by Conspirare lives on YouTube.

Arranger: Pete Seeger | Composer: Pete Seeger | Performed By: Pete Seeger

Opening with the phrase How you wonder what you are, this poem, described by the composer as a sort of fable for adults, is set for mixed voices with soprano solo as a work of lyricism and reassurance, intense, colorful, dissonant and worthy of the best choirs.

Composer: Dale Trumbore

The choral ensemble creates a spare and stark vocal atmosphere with steady, pulsating vocal effects as the solo lines emerge from the texture. First Soon ah will be done and then I wanna die easy, which are then combined in a powerful collage of sonority that expresses the drama and emotion of this powerful music. Duration: ca. 5:50.

Arranger: Craig Hella Johnson

The choral ensemble creates a spare and stark vocal atmosphere with steady, pulsating vocal effects as the solo lines emerge from the texture. First Soon ah will be done and then I wanna die easy, which are then combined in a powerful collage of sonority that expresses the drama and emotion of this powerful music. Duration: ca. 5:50.

Arranger: Craig Hella Johnson

In this beautiful poem by Dorothy Parker, Mary knows her baby is holy simply because he is hers. She considers herself blessed whenever he reaches another birthday, without even knowing how few he has left. Celebrating Mary the mother and Christmas, Doug Brandt creates an inner voice of Mary in the altos and tenors while the outer voices create the ironic voice of both joy and heartbreak.

Composer: Doug Brandt

From the PBS program A Company of Voices, by Conspirare, this beloved folk tune is arranged for cello, solo soprano, mixed voices and piano in a rich and sonorous setting that is simply breathtaking. Cello part included. Duration: ca. 3:45. Recorded by Conspirare, Craig Hella Johnson, conductor.

Arranger: Craig Hella Johnson

The music from Recio feels like a hovering cloud of sound with a serene ambiance. It is meditative music that shimmers and reminds that what we really love we must fight for.

Composer: Matthew Recio