Today’s challenge is from Charlie over at composerquest.com. The Amadeus Chamber Symphony is looking for new works for their upcoming Christmas concerts and has asked for arrangements of Christmas carols for chamber orchestra and choir. They also want the audience to be able to sing along.

A score like this takes a bit more writing than you might think. Even though it’s only about three minutes long, the texture is quite thick. Nonetheless, the process is much the same as writing for smaller ensembles. It starts with reimagining the well-known tune and getting away from the rigid notions of harmony and accompaniment that have over the years come to be so strongly associated with this melody, at least so far as I’m able without rendering the piece incomprehensible. I also wanted to avoid reapeating previous treatments of the tune that I’ve written in years past. After the challenge was issued, I sat on this for a few days just to try to get to know the melody as its own musical entity and consider possible treatments before I began writing out ideas. This step is really necessary, especially since the tune appears not once but several times throughout the course of the work and it would be dreadfully boring if I were to treat it the same way each time.

Here’s the score. Parts are also available on request.