Mark Andrist – Absolute Winner, Composition
Mark Andrist
Country: United States
Category: Composition
Award: Absolute Winner
Program:
“Songs of Innocence” — a song cycle for countertenor and woodwinds, featuring selected poems of William Blake.
The first version of “Songs of Innocence” was conceived when Mark Andrist was doing graduate work in Louisville, Kentucky. He had been coaxed into singing several countertenor works and found dissatisfaction with some modern compositions for the countertenor voice.
Many years later, after hearing similar comments from a few of his students, he felt compelled to return to the old manuscripts. After considerable revising, reworking, and the addition of several new songs, the result became a Mozartian take on familiar William Blake poems: playful and whimsical, with a spiritual undertone.
The work is written for the natural countertenor voice, as opposed to the developed falsetto that is more common in modern compositions for that voice.
Winning videos:
The Lamb
Introduction
The Shepherd
The School Boy
Laughing Song
The Echoing Green
The Chimney Sweeper