Glad Day – settings of the poetry of William Blake

the choral version
Featuring
Phil Minton voice
Kate Westbrook voice
Mike Westbrook piano
Karen Street accordion
Billy Thompson violin
Steve Berry double bass
London College Of Music Chamber Choir
directed by Paul Ayres

Many of Mike Westbrook’s William Blake settings derive from Adrian Mitchell’s TYGER, staged by the National Theatre in 1971. However it is with vocalists Phil Minton and Kate Westbrook that the songs are most associated, through performances with Westbrook ensembles in many countries and on two albums, Bright as Fire (1980) and Glad Day (1997). This fully choral version of Glad Day was premiered in a performance at The Foundling Museum as part of the 2007 London Festival of Contemporary Church Music.

MikeWestbrook makes full use of his two striking vocalists. He finds music to match the ecstasy of I See Thy Form and the desolation of London Song, turns A Poison Tree into a blood-curdling tango, and fashions a magnificent anthem for Let the Slave/The Price of Experience, Blake’s great paeans to freedom, dignity and compassion.
The Wire

Perhaps the greatest work in all British Jazz.
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