Prof. Gabriel Crouch Produces New CD, Path of Miracles

July 21, 2006

July 21, 2006, Greencastle, Ind. - Gabriel Crouch, instructor and director of choral ensembles in the DePauw University School of Music, produced a recently-released compact disc, Path of Miracles, by Joby Talbot. Issued by Signum Classics as a hybrid CD and SACD, the disc's liner notes are also written by Professor Crouch.

"Three years ago, I entered into a collaboration with Nigel Short, the conductor of a choir called 'Tenebrae' in London," Crouch says. "We came up with the idea of commissioning a new piece of music: a full concert-length piece which would dramatize the centuries-old pilgrimage route along northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. Over the next year I developed the idea, wrote various 'treatments' and fund-raising proposals, found the composer and raised the money." 

Composer Joby Talbot finished the piece in March 2005 and it was first performed at the City of London festival in July 2005. The disc was released in May. This week, "we finally embark on the original goal of the project -- to give staged performances of the piece in all the major gothic cathedrals along the route: Burgos Cathedral, Leon Cathedral, etc.," Professor Crouch reports.

Rob Barnett, classical music editor for Music Web International, calls the disc "a work of sheer, plangent beauty which conveys a sense of time-travelling, profundity and disorientating strangeness." Read the complete review here.

Learn more about Path of Miracles by clicking here.

The singing of Gabriel Crouch -- who joined the DePauw faculty in Fall 2005 after a distinguished career with the King's Singers -- was praised in a recent Washington Post review. You'll find details in this previous story.

Visit the DePauw University School of Music online by clicking here.

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