Christopher Tyler Nickel: Mass & Te Deum

Award-winning Canadian composer Christopher Tyler Nickel adds to his impressive catalogue of large-scale liturgical works with a double-bill featuring his Mass and Te Deum, composed concurrently and completed in 2022. As with previous works – including Requiem, and the seven-hour long oratorio The Gospel According to Mark – Chris’ spirituality infuses his music with melancholy and meditative qualities. Haunting intimacy, a predilection for chant-like melodies and allusions to Medieval music, and plangent orchestral colours, give these two new sacred works a feeling of timelessness.

Listeners will recognise Chris’ penchant for unusual combinations of instruments – a quartet from the oboe family in both works, with the lesser heard oboe d’amore and bass oboe alongside oboe and cor anglais; and a pair of Wagner tubas in the Mass.

Chris once again collaborates with soprano Catherine Redding, the Vancouver Chamber Choir and Vancouver Contemporary Orchestra under the baton of Clyde Mitchell – who on previous releases of Chris’ music have delivered “emotionally stirring performances” (The WholeNote).