A. Chance, Salve Regina (2022)- Van Diemen's Band

🎼 Salve Regina (2022)
Alice Chance (b.1994)
Performed LIVE at Stanley Town Hall, Tasmania.
March 2023
Lotte Betts-Dean | Mezzo-Soprano
Van Diemen's Band
Julia Fredersdorff | Baroque Violin & Artistic Director
Lizzy Welsh | Baroque Violin
Laura Vaughan | Viola da Gamba
Aline Zylberajch | Harpsichord
Hannah Lane | Harp
Jessie Rodger | Film-maker
Hail Queen, mother of mercy:
our life, sweetness, and hope, hail.
To you we sigh, mourning and weeping
in this valley of tears.
Turn then, our advocate, those merciful eyes toward us.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Hail queen.
Composer’s note:
I have long been interested in the Catholic prayer Salve Regina, having sung many settings in various vocal ensembles, the most recent being that of Hungarian composer Gyöngyösi Levente. I delighted in the way Gyöngyösi revelled in the text, revisiting words, and squeezing new gestures out of them. Spending so much time with these words, I began to ask myself what if the prayer were seen from a different perspective; where the person uttering the prayer was not directing it outwards, but inwards? We all encounter moments where we need to call upon the highest in ourselves, our strongest, most compassionate, most patient, most astonishing selves. With this piece, I imagine the soprano to be a figure in this very situation, hailing her own inner ideal, her own Regina. To sculpt the text to this idea, I have omitted some lines. In doing this
I am hoping to offer an additional and different perspective on this well-loved prayer, but by no means a replacement. It is my hope that this work resonates with anyone who has needed to, or is needing to, call upon their absolute highest self to overcome or navigate something seemingly insurmountable.
🎥 Film by Caleb Miller Mac40Media
© Van Diemen's Band