Tarik O’Regan's The Night's Untruth for SATB chorus Brass ensemble and Organ is a co-commission celebrating the 10th anniversary of JAM (The John Armitage Memorial Trust) and the 40th anniversary of VocalEssence. 'The Night’s Untruth explores the use of sleep as metaphor by dint of excerpts from poems written in the 17th to 20th centuries. Death love fear ecstasy isolation dreaming and rest are all textual “variations” on the “theme” of sleep and can be found in the chosen texts. The work’s title is taken from a line in a poem by Samuel Daniel (1562-1619) and speaks tothe composition’s focus on sleep as a parallel possibly dystopian existence to the one experienced in our waking hours.' - Tarik O’Regan March 2010 Scored for brass quintet organ and SATB choir with (minor) divisi and occasional moderately demanding solos for tenor and soprano this evocative 16-minute work probes the mystery of sleep with texts from poems by Keats Samuel Daniel Shakespeare and Hart Crane: 'death love fear ecstasy isolation dreaming and rest' are the themes O'Regan explores through these texts in a work as episodic as a disturbed night with the title creating a 'focus in sleep as a parallel possibly dystopian existence'. - Organists' Review
