Missa Brevissima

Performed by Antioch Chamber Ensemble directed by Joshua Copeland, February 2020.

“Missa Brevissima” reflects my experiences singing sacred Music with the American Boychoir School from 2009 to 2013. As a non-religious person, I sometimes struggled with singing sacred music at religious functions. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, these years were some of the most formative of my life. The school — also a secular institution — embraced both sacred and secular music as we toured and performed, and while the school sadly closed in 2017, the lessons I learned there are still highly relevant to me today. I often reflected on my varied experiences at the school while I was writing this piece.

This piece utilizes the 18th century tradition of condensing the text of individual mass movements by singing several lines simultaneously, and applies it with the entire text of the mass (i.e. all movements combine to form the text). The resulting collage of text is set to counterpoint filled with quotes from various mass settings and layered with anachronistic extensions and unorthodox chromaticisms. Quotes and paraphrases derived from plainchant, Durufle, Martin, Faure, Rossini, Schnittke, Poulenc, Byrd, and Palestrina appear throughout the piece.

Text: Mass ordinary