Full Catalogue

This seven page compendium of information and resources helpful to choir directors, choristers and music students. Much of the material in this booklet is different from that in the CD. There is biographical information, a discussion on the process of composition and suggestions for rehearsal. It includes information on Sarah’s compositional process, Rehearsal suggestions, frequently given feedback to Choirs plus bio info.

A  short song by Sarah Hopkins in a vibrant, joyful style. This is a combined score that can be used by either treble or mixed voices. The work divides into seven parts but many parts use sustained single tones so a choir of reasonable ability can perform the work. SA or SATB a cappella (or accompanied by any treble ensemble).

“Riawanna” is an Australian native word for “circles” and the piece is a do-it-yourself round with thousands of possibilities. It includes mixed meters. The final instruction in the accompanying notes says it all: “have fun”.

The sound file is by Eltham East Primary School Choir’s CD Sea Shapes, conducted by Anne Williams.

This piece is currently in preparation, and will be available shortly. For enquiries, please contact our administrator, Jada, at admin@mortonmusic.com

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Carl Crossin writes that the brief given to him in the commission of this work was that the song be “uplifting and life affirming” – and that it certainly is. A wonderful piece for secondary choir

This piece is currently in preparation, and will be available shortly. For enquiries, please contact our administrator, Jada, at admin@mortonmusic.com

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Carl Crossin writes that the brief given to him in the commission of this work was that the song be “uplifting and life affirming” – and that it certainly is. A wonderful piece for secondary choir.

This seventy minute CD includes spoken commentary from Sarah Hopkins as she rehearses Past Life Melodies with St Peters Chorale and we also hear inspiring performances of the full piece. This is a marvelous resource which has the composer’s stamp of authority!

This piece is currently in preparation, and will be available shortly. For enquiries, please contact admin@mortonmusic.com

A four-part arrangement for treble voices of the traditional American folk song that concludes with the most magical and ethereal sounds!

Also available in SSAA voicing

A four-part arrangement for treble voices of the traditional American folk song that concludes with the most magical and ethereal sounds!

Also available for SATB

Sing Out! was commissioned for Australian Society of Music Education Conference 2005 as the opening massed work. It is a short, fun, rhythmic piece to be sung ‘with joy’.

The composer arranged the text using both his own verses in English and traditional Australian words. The latter have a sonorous quality and also match the theme of the song. The result is a work with a distinct Australian flavour which paints a visual image of the Australian outback. SSAA unaccompanied.

A robust arrangement which includes two versions of an Australian sea shanty. The composer also sanctions a cappella performances.

A unison mass in English. Suitable for congregational use, or for unison choir.

Another in the Songs of Passage set, “tabulam” means “my home”. This song captures the energy and life of music-making from the north of Australia where part-singing is joyous, spontaneous and often improvised. The writing is lush, rich and repetitive. Commissioned by Graeme Morton’s St Peters Chorale.

Talking to my Shoe is the first piece in a collection of four pieces for treble voices and piano.

Composer Paul Stanhope writes:

Losing the Plot is a collection of songs for children’s voices and piano with texts by Michael Leunig. They were written as a follow up to my earlier cycle of Leunig pieces called Songs of Innocence and Joy for treble voices and chamber orchestra.

The first of these pieces, Talking to My Shoe was commissioned and premiered by the Sydney Children’s Choir as part of their 15th anniversary in 2004. The remaining three songs in the cycle were commissioned by the Network of Treble Ensembles (NoTE) which includes Brisbane Biralee Voices, Gondwana Voices,Young Adelaide Voices and Young Voices of Melbourne. All the songs in this set are tinged with an exuberant sense of the absurd, but as usual with Leunig’s texts, there are many layers of meaning and often twists in the tale.

The songs are written for upper-primary to high-school aged treble voices mostly in unison and two parts. In two songs—Talking to My Shoe and La–La Land—the choir splits into three parts, but only in a couple of short passages. A more difficult version of this piece also exists with the voices divided into three parts.

Permission should be sought from Penguin Books Australia before re-printing any of the texts.

The recordings are by the Australian Boys Choir conducted by Noel Ancell.

Talking to my Shoe is the first piece in a collection of four pieces by Paul Stanhope. This version is for SSA and piano.

Composer Paul Stanhope writes:

Losing the Plot is a collection of songs for children’s voices and piano with texts by Michael Leunig. They were written as a follow up to my earlier cycle of Leunig pieces called Songs of Innocence and Joy for treble voices and chamber orchestra.

The first of these pieces, Talking to My Shoe was commissioned and premiered by the Sydney Children’s Choir as part of their 15th anniversary in 2004. The remaining three songs in the cycle were commissioned by the Network of Treble Ensembles (NoTE) which includes Brisbane Biralee Voices, Gondwana Voices,Young Adelaide Voices and Young Voices of Melbourne. All the songs in this set are tinged with an exuberant sense of the absurd, but as usual with Leunig’s texts, there are many layers of meaning and often twists in the tale.

The songs are written for upper-primary to high-school aged treble voices mostly in unison and two parts. In two songs—Talking to My Shoe and La–La Land—the choir splits into three parts, but only in a couple of short passages. A more difficult version of this piece also exists with the voices divided into three parts.

Permission should be sought from Penguin Books Australia before re-printing any of the texts.

This piece is currently in preparation. For more information please contact admin@mortonmusic.com

This piece is currently in preparation. For more information please contact admin@mortonmusic.com

This piece is currently in preparation, and will be available shortly. For enquiries, please contact admin@mortonmusic.com

This poignant piece, written for the Seymour College Chamber Singers, is based on the poem by the same name by Robert Frost. The text tells of a traveller who comes across a fork in the road and decides to take the road less travelled – a moving reflection on life’s decisions. Composer Carl Crossin’s decision to include violin adds a further element of emotion to an already very stirring piece. Highly recommended, particularly for youth choirs.

This piece is currently in preparation, and will be available shortly. For enquiries, please contact admin@mortonmusic.com

This poignant piece, written for the Seymour College Chamber Singers, is based on the poem by the same name by Robert Frost. The text tells of a traveller who comes across a fork in the road and decides to take the road less travelled – a moving reflection on life’s decisions. Composer Carl Crossin’s decision to include violin adds a further element of emotion to an already very stirring piece. Highly recommended.

A lyrical and charming Australian folksong set for SATB choir and piano. This is a simple arrangement that brings out the grace and charm of the melody. The score gives and explanation of all the Australian slang in the song, arising as it does from the Australian colonial period and the vast sheep-raising properties that were characteristic of this history.

This song makes a great contrast with Bullocky-O, also arranged by Graeme Morton.

A humorous song for young singers with references to unusually named and strange sounding Australian towns such as Burrumbeet, Beetaloo and Gundagai. The performance is from the National Youth Choir of Australia directed by Noel Ancell.

This is the ultimate in a flexible edition! Unison, SAA, TBB and SATB choirs can sing the music from this copy. Based on the old Dutch carol, McKinley’s accompaniment fairly bowls along in a quasi-Baroque style. An excellent addition to the sacred Easter repertoire for any choir.

This wonderful piece portrays three phases of the day: Sunrise, emerging in the stillness of the dawn, Birds, reflecting the vitality of the noonday, and the vibrant bird calls in the “Australian) bush, and Sunset, where the conclusion to the set of songs is a slow chordal diminuendo as the sun sets. Each movement can be performed separately.

Three simple carols for women’s or children’s choir using the medieval texts Terly Terlow, When Crist Was Born of Mary Free and I Sing of a Maiden.

This “Victoria Triptych” was written in 2011, the 400th anniversary of the death of the great Spanish polyphonist, Thomas Luis de Victoria. For unaccompanied SATB choir, and with divided parts, these wonderful Latin motets remind us that the great motet tradition is still vibrant and flourishing. The individual titles, recorded by the choir of St James King Street, Sydney, one of three commissioning choirs, are:

Versa est in Luctum

Lamentation of Jeremiah

Hombres, Victoria, Victoria!

A six-minute piece that uses the Victor Carrell poem which describes the poet’s return to Australia by sea.

Nigel Butterley is one of Australia’s senior composers. This piece uses haiku texts and was originally composed for Gondwana Voices to perform at the Fifth World Symposium on Choral Music. Its harmonic idiom is quite advanced and it is a wonderful addition to the repertoire for an excellent children’s or female choir.

“Tunggare” means “voice” or “to sing” in an Australian dialect. This is a wonderful opening or closing to a concert. There is much repetition and very easy tenor and bass parts, so it is perfect for a high school choir (and other choirs as well!). It may also be used as a choral piece for audience participation.

These two songs are unusual, fresh and vivid. They resonate with ideas drawn from several religious philosophies. The composer sanctions performances within the context of Christian worship as well as any philosophic tradition which values the soul. Includes harmonic overtone singing.

The individual parts are very simple and a large and sonorous ensemble is preferred. Mixed voices a cappella.

A slow meditative work. A beautiful imaginative piece that stands among the best.

Number one of Twist’s “Victoria Triptych”. My harp is tuned for lamentation, and my flute to the voice of those who weep. Spare me, O Lord, for my days are as nothing (trans. Miguel Iglesias)

Available in the set of Three Motets after Victoria, linked here – not available singly.

Orlovich has a keen ear for the way different texts resonate with each other. This piece uses the traditional Latin text Dulcis Jesu Memoria and Victor Carrell’s Voice of the River which draws on a series of images which address “love” as it is found in some of its myriad manifestations. Commissioned by Graeme Morton’s St Peters Chorale and suitable for a good high school or college choir. It could also be used in church situations as an anthem.

An anthology of three songs, Cutty Sark, Midsummer Noon and Drovers. The score includes instructions for “random bush sounds”.

Wake Up! is a rhythmic and energetic piece that re-imagines the choir ensemble as a contemporary band. Amongst the global frenzy of contemporary culture, hip-hop and urban music has become the ‘folk music’ that resonates strongly with our current generation. This piece captures the vibrancy of those rhythms and melodies through the imitation of driving hip-hop beats and vociferous rap vocal.

A masterly and unique arrangement of Australia’s favourite song.

This piece is currently in preparation, and will be available shortly. For enquiries, please contact admin@mortonmusic.com

This piece is currently in preparation, and will be available shortly. For enquiries, please contact admin@mortonmusic.com

A wonderfully uplifting piece with solos throughout, We Are The Future is highly recommended for youth choir. With text adapted from year 8, Brighton Secondary Student, Paris Maddern’s poem “The Future”, this joyous piece for SATB or SSA choir carries a strong, youthful voice and sings of their hope for the future, and their role in it.

“And I cry at the glowing blaze of disaster in this world

Yearning to reshape it, let goodness be unfurled

Perhaps I am not good enough

Perhaps my strength exceeds me,

The world will see me.”

This piece is currently in preparation, and will be available shortly. For enquiries, please contact admin@mortonmusic.com

A wonderfully uplifting piece with solos throughout, We Are The Future is highly recommended for youth choir. With text adapted from year 8, Brighton Secondary Student, Paris Maddern’s poem “The Future”, this joyous piece for SATB or SSA choir carries a strong, youthful voice and sings of their hope for the future, and their role in it.

“And I cry at the glowing blaze of disaster in this world

Yearning to reshape it, let goodness be unfurled

Perhaps I am not good enough

Perhaps my strength exceeds me,

The world will see me.”