“Beloved repertoire...this will be like a visit to an old, familiar place of spiritual nurturing. Gloriæ Dei Cantores is one of America's best advocates for this repertoire. Warmly recommended!”
Classics Today
Celebrate the sacred sounds of America with Kaleidoscope. This is the music that has lofted through church rafters across the United States since its founding and continues to bring comfort and strength to its faithful people today. This recording features classics by several of America's great composers such as Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson; and beloved hymns from Appalachia and the South.
Premiere and Only Works
| Track 2 | I Will Arise | arr. Alice Parker |
| Track 3 | Foundation | arr. Alice Parker |
| Track 6 | The Twenty-Third Psalm | Foote |
| Track 7 | Holy Manna | arr. John Carter |
| Track 13 | Psalm 136 | Thomson |
| Track 15 | Come, Holy Ghost | Sowerby |
Critical Acclaim
- “Annotations and texts are integrated into a single, listener-friendly sequence, an approach that I wish was much more widely adopted in the industry. And the graphic design of the booklet is appealingly lavish without becoming tacky. Still more attractive, to my taste, is the program's alternation of explicitly composed works with others of folk origin, which works rather more persuasively than you might imagine. If you think you've long since overdosed on Amazing Grace, you need to re-open the subject until you've heard the enchanting new choir-and-solo-strings arrangement that opens this program. And the rest of it, too, is warmly recommended.”
Fanfare
- “Fans of American sacred choral music, particularly early-American hymns and 20th-century church anthems, will find much to enjoy on this diverse and very well sung program ... Several of the early American pieces are Alice Parker arrangements (I Will Arise, Foundation, Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal), and others are newer versions of favorite hymns Amazing Grace, What a Friend We Have in Jesus – the former a richly scored rendition of this classic that includes cello and violin accompaniment, the latter a very modern realization of the old standard for solo organ. Also included are such beloved repertoire staples as Jean Berger's The Eyes of All Wait Upon Thee, Randall Thompson's The Best of Rooms, and Paul Manz's E'en So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come. In other words, for many listeners, this will be like a visit to an old, familiar place of spiritual nurturing, of communal worship, or of just plain memorable choral singing. And Gloriæ Dei Cantores is one of America's best advocates for this repertoire; for these singers, music like this is not performing material but rather is part of life's essence, and their commitment comes across in the exuberance and consistent, sensitive expressive character of the singing. ...There's a nice feel to this disc, a sensibility that conveys the intended spiritual qualities embodied in most of the musical works, and as such, it's a success -- and as mentioned, worthy of serious consideration by lovers of American hymns and sacred anthems.”
Classics Today
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