Programme Notes

This carol was a collaboration between myself and my good friend Maia. The genesis of this piece was a tune that I came up with as a quick sketch around Christmas of 2018, and a casual chat with Maia about how I hadn't written a carol before. Later, in 2019, the subject was revisited, and we started to work on the carol.

Maia's text bridges her two mother languages: French and English. Each refrain has the Latin exclamation of "In Excelsis Deo!" (trans. "God in the highest!"). The subject of the carol is the Virgin Mary. The carol is dedicated, in loving memory, to Susan Carr.