Frank Thomas, Jr., a parishoner at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in downtown Atlanta, generously funded the commissioning of a festive Easter anthem for the church this year. Daniel E. Gawthrop’s This Joyous Day for chorus, organ, brass and percussion will receive its world premiere performance at All Saints’ on Easter Sunday morning. This storied congregation has been the musical home of Ray and Beth Chenault, directors of music and organists for forty years and the commissioned work is dedicated to them in honor of their long and faithful service.
Ray Chenault said, “Daniel Gawthrop’s This Joyous Day is an exciting and much needed new addition to the Easter season and is based on a text by Edmund Spenser. Gawthrop’s beautiful writing underscores this gorgeous text, with a lovely and sensitive treatment of a quiet inner section, surrounded by a brilliant opening and closing — making it a jewel for Easter Day as well as the Easter season.”
The new work will be published by Dunstan House and available for Easter of 2017.
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