Love & Light
AVIE, 2023
9/10
The Bay Area girlchoir iSing Silicon Valley return with new works by Kenyon Duncan and Sungji Hong, plus Cheryl Ann Fulton’s harp, Esteli Gomez’s soprano and Jennah Delp Somers’ conducting for themes of remembrance, love, wisdom, and healing.
“Os Mutorum”, by Sir James MacMillan, opens the listen with the soaring, powerful, harmonizing vocals amid the dreamy harp playing, and “Ubi Flumen Praesulis” follows with bright and layered voices making for an uplifting, joyous climate in the Gabriel Jackson song.
Further along, Sungji Hong’s “Lux Aeterna” emits a very intimate appeal of expressive, heart felt harmonizing, while “Ave Regina Caelorum”, by Andrew Smith, offers a brief, poetic and stirring album highlight.
“Psalm 113” and “chorea lucis”, by Kile Smith and Kenyon Duncan, exit the listen, where the former is a soothing and twinkling affair, and the latter builds into a swirling, cathartic finish of sublime singing and strong attention to mood.
A listen that’s full of emotion from beginning to end and characterizes the darkness and isolation of the pandemic, in the area of modern choir music, it just doesn’t get any better than iSing Silicon Valley.