Ave Generosa: A Musical Journey with the Mystics Gaudete Ensemble & Eamonn Dougan

• Margaret Rizza (b. 1929):
• 1Veni Jesu (Version for A Capella Choir)03:35
• 2Fire of Love06:06
• 3My Child04:18
• 4O Sapientia04:24
• 5O Clavis David03:40
• 6O Oriens02:33
• 7Mary Slept03:19
• 8Ave Maria05:00
• 9Oculi Mei (Version for Soprano, Baritone, Choir & String Quartet)03:58
• 10Ave Generosa06:33
• 11O Speculum Columbe05:58
• 12Mysterium Amoris05:15
• 13Trinity Blessing03:25
• Total Runtime58:04

Info for Ave Generosa: A Musical Journey with the Mystics

Margaret Rizza writes: “For this collection, I have chosen 13 texts and set them to music. These prayers, hymns and antiphons speak to me in different ways about the mystical world of which we are all a part.” Margaret Rizza studied at the Royal College of Music, London and at the National School of Opera, London and continued her training in Siena and Rome, Italy. She sang professionally for 25 years, under the name of Margaret Lensky. She has sung at many of the leading concert and operatic venues and under such conductors as Benjamin Britten, Igor Stravinsky and Leonard Bernstein. She also gave premieres of works by John Tavener, Thea Musgrave and Richard Rodney Bennett. From 1977 to 1994, she went on to teach singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. During her years at Guildhall she worked on many outreach projects taking groups of students to share their music with people in prisons, hospitals, hospices, inner city schools, MS centres, schools for the blind and working with people with physical and learning difficulties. She was also involved with Live Music Now, a wonderful organization founded by Yehudi Menuhin who wrote “I can only think of music as something inherent in every human being – a birthright. Music co-ordinates mind, body and spirit.”

Gaudete Ensemble
Eamonn Dougan, conductor

The Gaudete Ensemble
was formed and directed by Margaret Rizza as a small parish choir for St Thomas’ Church in Sevenoaks. As it developed it went on to do many concerts and recordings. For these recordings the group was augmented with students and young professional singers from London. A CD of chants arranged and directed by Margaret Rizza made it to number 1 in the Classical Charts in 2007.

Eamonn Dougan first met Margaret Rizza while recording her works. In 2010 he directed the Gaudete Ensemble, now made up entirely of professional musicians, in the recording Mysterium Amoris which was released on the Naxos Label. Recorded in February 2020, Ave Generosa is also directed by Eamonn Dougan and features music published by the RSCM.

Eamonn Dougan
is an inspirational communicator with a wide-ranging repertoire, and is a renowned vocal coach and baritone. “Dougan and his team [Britten Sinfonia] displayed masterly control… Singing without blemish; playing that leapt straight from the heart: here was a sterling performance” (The Times - MacMillan Seven Last Words); Eamonn is Associate Conductor of The Sixteen, founding Director of Britten Sinfonia Voices, Music Director of the Thomas Tallis Society and Chief Conductor for Jersey Chamber Orchestra.

Forthcoming conducting engagements include return visits to the Cumnock Tryst Festival, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Danish National VokalEnsemblet, and KoncertKor, Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid (ORCAM), and Jersey Chamber Orchestra. This alongside his continued work educating choral groups across the world.

Recent highlights have included the world premiere of James MacMillan All the Hills and Vales Along at the Cumnock Tryst Festival, he assisted Sir Mark Elder for the world premiere concert and recording of Puccini Le Villi with Opera Rara and the London Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted the off-stage chorus for Berlioz L’Enfance du Christ with The Hallé, Britten Sinfonia Voices and Genesis Sixteen for BBC Proms 2019. In 2019 he directed The Sixteen’s highly acclaimed tour of Australia and Singapore, Messiah with Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León and Cappella Amsterdam, made his Spanish debut with the Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa, Coral de Bilbao, and Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla and in Paris at the La Seine Musicale with renowned ensemble Accentus and in Copenhagen with Danish National Symphony Orchestra, VokalEnsemblet and KoncertKor. Eamonn’s developing opera work has included Mozart La finta giardiniera, Cosi fan tutte, and Dido and Aeneas with Ryedale Festival Opera.

Eamonn has a highly successful five-disc Polish Baroque series with The Sixteen. The first disc, music by Bartlomiej Pekiel, was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award (‘Richly dramatic’ – The Observer). The fifth disc, music by Marcin Mielczewski, was released to widespread critical acclaim in September 2017.

In 2008 Eamonn was appointed a Visiting Professor to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, where he teaches ensemble singing and directs the Guildhall Consort.

This album contains no booklet.