About

b.1975, Canada

A native of Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Craig Galbraith is one of Canada's most exciting young composers. 

He performs frequently as a tenor with the early music choir, Studio Sixteen, and sits on the Artistic Directorship of the Canadian Contemporary Music Workshop (CCMW), an entity dedicated to promoting emerging composers. 

Galbraith has received numerous prestigious commissions, including for the Elmer Iseler Singers, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, the Gryphon Trio, and Musica Intima.  He is currently completing a doctorate in composition at the University of Toronto.

Artist Compositions

 

Premiere Title of Commission Listen
04/28/2011 Symptoms of a Quase Language Listen Close

In the poem from which Galbraith has taken his text, Vancouver writer Desirée Jung uses a mixture of Portuguese and English to describe a state of mind in which two worlds collide and, for a moment, coexist with one another, intermingled and inseparable. A subtle use of guitar accompaniment and close harmony lends further expression to the composition’s theme of merging realities.

11/11/2020 The Spell of the Rose Listen Close

Thomas Hardy’s poem The Spell of the Rose tells a story of alternating hope and turmoil in a troubled love relationship. Galbraith assigns passages of direct speech to solo voice and narrative passages to the full choir; he also adapts the poem slightly, dovetailing together Hardy’s first and second stanzas.

04/22/2004 Freddy's Blend Listen Close

For the most part, Galbraith uses the notes of King Frederick’s original theme but rearranges them in various ways. Sometimes the notes are played simultaneously; sometimes the tune is transformed by means of such simple techniques as inverting it or playing it backwards.

11/09/2021 A Cradle Song Listen Close

William Blake’s poem 'A Cradle Song' incorporates into the soft and soothing language of a mother’s lullaby increasingly explicit allusions to the birth—and the death—of Christ. In setting the poem to music, Craig Galbraith chose to emphasize those allusions by punctuating certain passages with lines from common Latin motets.