Sinéad O'Connor was one of my favourite musicians in the late 80s, early 90s, and I recently rediscovered her breakout disc Troy in my collection.  The first track on that album is Jackie, a lament on losing a loved one to the sea... a very topical idea with the recent deadly helicopter crashes off Newfoundland and in the North Sea.

The sister choir to Newman Sound Men's Choir is Lady Cove Women's Choir, also directed by Kellie Walsh.  They are an exceptional group with a very wide range of rep, and it seems to me just the right kind of sound for an arrangement of Jackie.  So here is the result straight out of Sibelius.  Contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you would like to use the arrangement.

I'm a big fan of the (somewhat short-lived) Canadian group Moxy Früvous.  Their early 90s album Bargainville is often categorized as "comedy" but has a lot that is of great musical value.  One of my particular favourites is Gulf War Song, which gives away its political leanings in the first lines:

We got a call to write a song about the war in the Gulf,
but we shouldn't hurt anyone's feelings.
So we tried, and gave up, 'cause there was no such song,
but the trying was very revealing.

This of course is referring to the First Gulf War in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, but it remains highly relevant today.

Ever since joining Newman Sound I've hankered to have my group sing it, so in late 2007 I transcribed it for TTBB (two tenor, baritone and bass parts).  We haven't yet sung it, in part because of the strong political position it takes.

Now that I've joined JukeVox the opportunity has presented itself once again, so I've modified the arrangement for SATBB (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass).  Here is an MP3 of the result, the raw output of the music formatter Sibelius.  Contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you would like to use the arrangement.

I just completed an arrangement of Caetano Veloso's wonderful "Um Canto de Afoxé para o Bloco do Ilê"  for SATBB (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass) and bongos.  The original can be found on David Byrne's compilation Brazilian Classics Volume 1: Beleza Tropical and of course on one of Veloso's albums as well.

Here's the original Windows Media version, and here's an MP3 of my arrangement that came out of Sibelius.  Unfortunately the playback is a bit funky in bars 27/28 and the end.  Also the whistle tweets are supposed to be claps, but you get the idea.  Contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you would like to use the arrangement.

In 2008 I arranged More Than Words for Newman Sound Men's Choir. I had MP3 breakdowns of the parts available in this posting, but as of March 2009 I've redone the arrangement. Here is an MP3 of the result, version 4, owing much to ideas borrowed from the Ac.Rock arrangement on their album UR What UR.

It is relatively straightforward compared to version 3 so I didn't bother with individual part breakdowns.

Contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you would like to use the arrangement.