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for mixed choir (SSAATTBB) a cappella
Text: Latin (attr Notker)
Duration: 3'00''
Difficulty: 4/5

Composer's note
Media vita was commissioned in 2015 by the English vocal ensemble, Siglo de Oro, and their director Patrick Allies to celebrate 500 years since the birth of the English Renaissance composer, John Sheppard. The piece draws inspiration from both the expansiveness and intensity found within Sheppard’s setting and the meaning found within the text itself. These ideas are incorporated into a richer harmonic language and reflective sonority.

Text
Media vita in morte sumus.
Quem quaerimus adjutorem nisi te, Domine,
qui pro peccatis nostris juste irasceris?

Sancte Deus.
Sancte fortis.
Sancte et misericors Salvator,
amarae morti ne tradas nos.

In the midst of life we are in death.
Whom can we seek as our helper but you, O Lord,
who for our sins are justly angry?

Holy God.
Holy and strong.
Holy and merciful Saviour,
deliver us not to the bitter pains of death.

Kerensa Briggs
Kerensa Briggs is an award-winning composer based in London. Her music has been performed internationally at venues including St Paul’s Cathedral and the Sistine Chapel, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM and BBC Radio Scotland by ensembles such as The Tallis Scholars and the BBC Singers. It also features on a number of CDs including ‘Advent Carols from King’s College London’ and ‘All things are quite silent’ by the Choir of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Kerensa was winner of the National Centre for Early Music Young Composers Award 2014 and the ‘Passiontide at Merton’ Composition Competition 2017. She was also a finalist in the ‘New Music for St Paul’s Composition Competition’ in 2019. Her love of sacred music emanates from her choral background, singing in the Gloucester Cathedral Youth Choir and later for choirs including Trinity College Cambridge and King’s College London, where she held a Choral Scholarship and undertook an MMus in Composition.