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GRAHAM PRATT - Songs In Harmony: Book One - Our Voices Are Our Own 

GRAHAM PRATT - Songs In Harmony: Book One - Our Voices Are Our Own 
Private Label ISBN: 9781916419308 

Graham Pratt has been arranging traditional material since the days prior to the late, lamented Regal Slip, whose stirring harmony singing was so popular.  Here we have two volumes of material that he has developed (either arranging or composing) for his choir, the Sheffield Folk Chorale.  Graham’s arrangements of some lovely and varied material are skilful, imaginative, witty and appropriate and satisfying to sing. In fact, they solidly tick every box you might require if looking for new material for a choir.  He has a fine ear for the type of setting which works with different songs.

The books have all the sort of details you really need – they’re graded for ease of performance (so some can be used as ‘warm-ups’), suggestions for alternative performance options, speed indications, where the material comes from and the whole is livened by some quirky and cheerful illustrations.  The books contain both traditional and composed pieces and include that rare but popular genre of secular Christmas songs.  This material has been solidly road-tested by Graham’s choir, videos of whom can be found on YouTube if you wish to hear the sort of thing the books contain.  These also follow on from his lovely arrangements of Maddy Taylor’s beautiful Christmas songs and Carols (Fine Songs For Singing – Songs And Carols For Community Choirs) and I was pleased to see that two of these books were produced in conjunction with the foundation founded in memory of the much missed Sarah Morgan. So, to repeat – a terrific resource which community choirs should relish.

www.grahamandeileenpratt.co.uk

Paul Burgess


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This album was reviewed in Issue 128 of The Living Tradition magazine.