Interview, Will Dawes on Dawn of Grace

Every Christmas brings with it a plethora of albums seeking to find a unique angle on the season. Cathedrals offer their own "Christmas from..." collections, instrumentalists vie with choirs for a share of the limelight, and solo singers assemble recitals capturing some aspect of the festive spirit.

Amid this year's array of Christmas recordings, Dawn of Grace from Somerville College Oxford stands out - devoted entirely to Christmas works by female composers, predominantly contemporary.

I spoke to Somerville's Director of Music Will Dawes (and fellow Somervillian Robert Clark, who contributed to both the interview and the album's sleeve-notes) about this album, how it fits into Somerville's history and ethos, and how university colleges manage to celebrate their own form of Christmas despite it falling in the holidays when hardly anyone is about.

This album – or at least the idea of it – seems like a natural and inevitable evolution of recent efforts to focus attention on women composers, both within the boys’ club of church music and more broadly. But in terms of Somerville specifically, where did the impetus come from to put this programme together and record it?

Somerville was founded in 1879 to be one of the first colleges that allowed women to study at Oxford. So, since day 1, the college has had an ethos within its student body that focusses on amplifying women’s voices. This album continues the work that our students have achieved over the last 143 years, and it was a particular delight to see the current members of the choir all so motivated in the administrative preparation for the album, keenly finding ways to be involved. With these factors in play, my role as Director of Music was really harnessing the energy from the college and its members, a very pleasurable task!

Most of the composers featured on this album are still alive - several indeed falling within or near “Generation Z”. Is this a conscious decision to look to the future, or was there simply not enough suitable music from earlier generations of women, who would often have had fewer composing opportunities available to them?

It was definitely a conscious decision to focus on composers who, (with the exception of Jeanne Demessieux, who died in 1968) are still alive and creating exceptional compositions. When researching the repertoire for the album, I was overwhelmed with choice. There have been outstanding women composers for many hundreds of years and from all over the world, but, knowing that we needed to limit the album to under 70mins of music, I decided to focus on composers who were still alive and writing works in English, but from as broad a demographic as possible and within the tripartite structure of the disc (Advent, Christmas, Celebration).

Even with those stipulations in mind, It was clear that we could still curate a collection of music which is exceptionally varied in terms of subject matter and style, yet still feels cohesive. It also goes hand in hand with our values by looking towards the future. Oxbridge is a traditional place, but we are responsible for helping shape the creative minds of the next generation, so I wanted this to be an album that looks forwards towards what’s to come, and not backwards into the past. Another perk to this focus allowed the singers and me to interact with the composers on numerous occasions: in person at the sessions, at the launch concert, and via the wonders of social media.

Shruthi Rajasekar’s Star of Rohini, drawing parallels between the star-announced births of Jesus and of Krishna, is a strikingly interfaith work, but for that very reason might struggle to be included in a church service. What sort of settings do you anticipate this work being programmed in?

Strikingly interfaith, and strikingly sparkly! We loved working on the piece and being able to be the second group other than the Yale Voxtet to perform it.

One place where this magical piece feels completely at home is in Somerville’s own Chapel. The building was constructed in 1934 and was envisaged to be ‘A house of prayer for all peoples’, so much so that those words are inscribed on the outside of the building, albeit in Greek. It’s an undenominational Chapel, i.e. it doesn’t ascribe to any particular faith. It has very few overtly Christian symbols, e.g. where chapels would usually have a cross, we have a Theorama – 10 panels representing the 9 major religious groups along with humanism. Our regular series of events are for those of all faiths and none, and we routinely offer a carefully crafted series of Contemplations as our Sunday evening offerings. We don’t avoid music from the Anglican choral tradition, but do strive to include the widest variety of choral repertoire from multiple backgrounds/genders/faiths to offer a balanced output.

Naturally you can’t take Christ out of Christmas, but the season isn’t limited to Christians – indeed, it is an increasingly secular time of the year. One feels that more and more people, particularly in places such as Oxford where so many people come to services for musical reasons as much as for reasons of faith, are ready for inter-faith appreciations of these holidays and might feel that this was a suitable musical work to programme for a celebratory event. Additionally, concerts in December and January would be a perfect solely secular opportunity. Along with all the repertoire on the album, I really do hope that people consider programming it in the future.

Many of these beloved Christmas texts have been set numerous times in the past, with the results often becoming popular staples of the repertoire. Do you think that poses a challenge for composers writing new settings of them, or is it more of an opportunity?

I can’t help thinking that it’s both - the challenge is an opportunity. The very fact that these composers are female means that they’re already challenging the canon, which is dominated by white, male, and usually dead composers. So why not push the challenge further by creating refreshing and entrancing new settings of canonical texts? In a way, the word challenge becomes reimagined in this project - the challenge of setting popular texts becomes a challenge to the exclusive canon of western music. The album was designed to offer an "alternative soundtrack to Christmas,” and I feel that the challenge of setting well-known texts to well-loved Christmas carols and songs provides the perfect opportunity to do just that. In particular, Jo Marsh’s setting of O magnum mysterium, a text set countless numbers of times, really does create a soundworld and an emotional response to the words like I’ve never experienced before.

Until 1994, Somerville was a women-only college; are there any connections on this album with its community of alumnae?

Absolutely – Like all Oxbridge colleges, we maintain a strong link with our community of alumni. On a musical level, Dame Emma Kirkby often returns to the college for concerts and masterclasses with members of the choir, and the wonderful Instruments of Time and Truth (run by another alumna, Gai Amherst) join us for our biannaual performance of the St John Passion. However, for this album, we were thrilled that Virginia Ross generously offered significant financial support to ensure that the recording could take place. Everyone in the college recognises that the generosity of our alumni provides so much to the current students, and this philanthropic cycle of “Once a Somervillian, always a Somervillian” helps to ensure that the college provides so much to so many, not just within its walls.

You draw a connection with the inclusive, non-denominational nature of Somerville’s chapel community. Insofar as university terms permit Christmas celebrations at all, what does this festival look like at Somerville?

The first thing that’s rather unusual is Oxford-wide – since the college members are scattered all over the globe by the 25th December, the 25th November becomes OxMas, when students come together with their friends and do all things Christmassy: dinners, parties, presents, carols etc. Some Colleges even go so far as having celebrating a ‘local liturgical feast’ and celebrate Midnight Mass at 11.30pm on November 24th! This all comes from Christmas being a time when people want to come together to celebrate with friends and family, so find it hugely touching to know that the students want to celebrate in this way before they travel home.

Specific to Somerville, we have four carol concerts: two each for students and Alumni so we can fit as many people in! These are structured like carol services with a mixture of readings and music which fit the festive theme giving the opportunity to rejoice and reflect. Yes, sometimes these end up taking place before Advent Sunday, but as mentioned earlier, the liturgical calendar tends not to have much say in relation to the confines of term dates! We tend to give other concerts at this time of year as well, focussing on those in need, so with our College of Sanctuary hat on, we value our visits to sing for the Charlbury Refugee Action Group each year. We also have several Christmas dinners in college when the choir sings for the 200 or so guests each evening. The works sung are very much like the college and this album: traditional, yet modern.