RODNEY SHARMAN

by Rodney Sharman

SATB with piano and percussion – CP 2189 – duration 3:40

Adder is a more sibilant incantation, evoking a more repetitive, rhythmic setting, ornamented with
percussive sound.

When the most recent edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary – widely used in schools around the world – was published, a sharp-eyed reader soon noticed that around forty common words concerning nature had been dropped. The words were no longer being used enough by children to merit their place in the dictionary. The list of these “lost words” included acorn, adder, bluebell, dandelion, fern, heron, kingfisher, newt, otter, and willow. Among the words taking their place were attach-ment, blog, broadband, bullet-point, cut-and-paste, and voice-mail. The news of these substitutions – the outdoor and natural being displaced by the indoor and virtual – became seen by many as a powerful sign of the growing gulf between childhood and the natural world.

by Rodney Sharman

SATB with piano and percussion – CP 2190 – duration 3:20

I chose Bluebell for the beauty of the language and imagery. The text immediately conjured ideas of how I may transform vocal colours and harmonies through layering and sonic after-images. 

by Rodney Sharman

SATB a cappella – CP 2319 – duration 4:15

by Rodney Sharman

SATB    a cappella    –    CP 1518   – 3:25
from the trilogy: Love, Beauty, Desire
FIRE, AIRE, EARTH, WATER, 
all the opposites that strove in Chaos, 
powrefull LOVE unites; 
And from their Discord drew this Harmonie,  –  poem by George Sandys (1577-1644)

by Rodney Sharman

TBB  a cappella    –    CP 1505   – 3:45
My Prime of Youth is but a Frost of Cares – the poignant poem by Chidiock Tichborne (1586) This composition is designed for accomplished singers. You will be struck by Rodney’s creative use of dissonance and consonance, rendering ebb and flow to the text. Listen to this amazing recording.

by Rodney Sharman

SATB  a cappella    –    CP 1513   – 3:35
This exquisite composition was premiered by a large youth choir.  Listen to the premiere recording.
The music reflects childhood and remembrance though musical “games”: canons and double canons (rounds), invertible counterpoint (register exchange of identical music), and inversions (turning an ongoing melody upside down), and memory games: repetition, extension and variation. Bill Richardson’s text asks us to think about forgetting as well remembering. Let us recall that Freud said that what we forget is much more interesting than what we remember.

by Rodney Sharman

SATB  a cappella    –    CP 1514   – 2:40
“So dark, so cold, so lonely. The longest night, the briefest light.” Rodney’s composition captures the wonder and mystery.