Michael John Trotta’s passion setting, Seven Last Words, was commissioned through the efforts of the Presbyterian Association of Musicians. It is set for SATB choir and soloists, with a full symphonic version available. Churches of modest means will be particularly interested, however, in the chamber orchestration.
"Trotta’s Seven Last Words repeatedly uses two musical motifs to achieve a remarkable degree of compositional unity. The first is a combination of two ascending intervals, a perfect fith and a second higher (usually a minor second but sometimes major), and the second is four notes in a descending scalar passage. This article introduces readers to this new work by examining each movement in turn and by discussing salient musical excerpts from the score, pointing out the frequent uses of these unifying motifs.”
Veni, Veni Emmanuel is a fascinating, infectious setting... effectively carries out that dialogue between the ancient Latin chant and the modern listener. The summer may as well be Advent and Christmas for the church musician, and Michael John Trotta’s Veni, Veni Emmanuel explodes on the listener with modern twenty-first- century suspended harmonies and hip-hop inspired percussion rhythms to create a fascinating, infectious setting for these ancient and beloved Advent antiphons.
In his famous Poetics of Music of 1939, Stravinsky observes, “A real tradition is not the relic of a past that is irretrievably gone; it is a living force that animates and informs the present.” Michael J. Trotta’s Seven Last Words is a work solidly grounded in tradition, yet incorporates a musical language that, in George Gershwin’s words, “informs the thoughts and aspirations of the people and the time. The dynamic interplay of time-honored musical gestures with present-day sonorities is present at the outset of the piece."
“weaves rich harmonies and memorable melodic lines into delightful tapestries of sound” - Stage and Cinema “captures the allegorical relationship between the spiritual and temporal” - Spectrum Music “a beautiful work with evocative text set to bea [...]
Passion and persistence lead VWC choir to one of the world’s most prestigious venues By Stephanie Smaglo It’s a bright spring morning in Midtown Manhattan. Sunlight pours through the towering structures overhead, sidewalks are alive with activity, an [...]