Gabriel Jackson's music has been performed and broadcast throughout Europe and the USA and has been heard, in recent years, in Cape Town, Ho Chi Minh City, Kiev, Kuwait, Sydney, Tokyo and Vancouver. His works have been presented at many festivals in the UK and beyond and his liturgical pieces are in the repertoires of many of Britain's leading cathedral and collegiate choirs and in 2003 he won the liturgical category at the inaugural British Composer Awards. "Salus Aeterna" is a bright and mercurial piece that makes full use of the delicious fleeting harmonies and close-written sonoroties of its flowing melodic lines. It sets a Sequence for Advent Sunday that looks forward to Christ's coming and subsequent judgement of all things. The exquisite miniature "O Thou That Art The Light" sets an intimate prayer by St Augustine of Hippo asking for God's grace to know and serve Him. Simple and homophonic it is infused with Jackson's characteristic passion and luminosity. "O fear the Lord" sets two verses from Psalm 34. A controlled organum-style opening gives way to a more fervent, harmonic middle section. An approachable and beautiful piece. "Salve Regina" is an exquisite piece, simple and homophonic in style, and with a luminescent beauty characteristic of many of Jackson's choral works. The piece begins quietly and reverently. There is a graceful soprano solo in the central section, after which the harmony opens out and richly blossoms in ecstatic praise of the Virgin Mary, before ending serenely as it began. |
