Nico Muhly: The Lenten Gospels
Buck McDaniel organ
Fr. Graeme Napier narration
Tuesday, 1 April 2025
7:00 p.m.
Saint Malachy’s-The Actors’ Chapel
239 West 49th Street (between 7th & 8th Avenues)
New York City
Organist, composer, and new music specialist Buck McDaniel presents the United States premiere of Nico Muhly’s immersive new work, The Lenten Gospels for organ and narration based on scripture as interpreted by Andrew Hammond, Chaplain to King’s College, Cambridge. Presented in the intimate environs of Saint Malachy’s-The Actors’ Chapel in the center of New York City’s theatre district, this event promises a moving evening exploring a man’s life, relating to all experiences and backgrounds. The Rev’d Graeme Napier, former Precenter at Westminster Abbey in London (and long affiliated with Muhly’s work) serves as narrator.
Listen to Buck McDaniel conduct the U.S. premiere of Muhly’s Malmesbury Motets.
Nico Muhly
As a child, Nico Muhly was a chorister at Grace Episcopal Church in Rhode Island, and he began to learn piano at ten years old. He studied English literature at the University of Columbia, New York, and completed his master’s degree in music at the Julliard School, where he attended the composition classes of John Corigliano.
Muhly began his career alongside Philip Glass. On arriving in New York at age eighteen, he fed Glass’s manuscripts into musical notation software. He spent eight years in this role, which allowed him to gain a deeper understanding of Glass’s process. Eventually Muhly joined the lineage of American minimalist composers, along with Steve Reich and John Adams, whose influence can be heard in his operas.
A prolific writer, in his twenty-year career he has already built up a catalog of over 260 pieces. His repertoire is mainly comprised of vocal music, sometimes with instrumental accompaniment, sometimes a cappella. Indeed, pieces from the Anglican liturgy, foundational to the musical experience of his childhood, strongly influence his compositions. Muhly has sung many pieces from the Tudor period, including works by Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and John Bull, as well as twentieth-century works by Tudor-influenced composers such as Herbert Howells and Gerald Finzi. Passionate about the textures and moments of ecstasy that characterize the Anglican choral tradition, Muhly has made Tudor music a focal point. It is the body of work most referenced in his own compositions. A great number of his works are themselves destined for the liturgy, having been commissioned by institutions such as King’s College, St. John’s College, and Cambridge, such as First Service (2004), Bright Mass with Canons (2005), Second Service (2014), Spiral Mass (2014), and Westminster Service (2022).
In his catalog of vocal music, Muhly has achieved a rapprochement between art music and pop. Having been an arranger for Björk, Antony and the Johnsons, and Sufjan Stevens, among others, he has also composed soundtracks for Hollywood films such as The Reader (2009) and Kill Your Darlings (2013), and televised series such as Howard’s End (2017) and Pachinko (2022). In 2023, he composed the music for David Hockney’s immersive art installation in London, David Hockney: Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away). Muhly has also composed music for four ballets, following commissions from the American Ballet Theatre and the Paris Opera, among others.
Muhly has written four operas. Two Boys (2010) and Marnie (2017) were commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, Dark Sisters (2011) by the Gotham Chamber Opera and the Opera of Philadelphia, and Sentences (2014) by Britten Sinfonia. All of these pieces are inspired by real human tragedies. Two Boys recounts the tale of a murder and the relationship of two young boys who met on the internet. Sentences is based on the story of Alan Turing’s prosecution for committing homosexual acts, while Dark Sisters focuses on polygamy in the Mormon community. In Marnie, Muhly adapts Winston Graham’s novel by the same name through the lens of the #MeToo era.
His works are produced by St. Rose Music Publishing, and his music has been recorded by Decca, Nonesuch, and Bedroom Community, a label of which he is a member. Bedroom Community also released Muhly’s first monographic disc, Speak Volumes, which was recorded in Philip Glass’s personal studio
Andrew Hammond
The English baritone and cleric, Andrew Hammond, has degrees in Philosophy and Theology (Cambridge) and studied singing at the Royal Academy of Music, London.
Andrew Hammond had worked in the world of classical music - first as an opera singer, culminating in three years as a principal baritone at Scottish Opera; he then moved into management, including stints with the Edinburgh International Festival and the European Union Youth Orchestra.
Andrew Hammond was ordained in 2007 to serve as Curate of St John's Wood in London. He had stints in London as a parish priest and as a minor canon of St Paul’s Cathedral. As Succentor of the cathedral, he had a responsibility for the cathedral's music as well as working with the other Minor Canons on the daily services and liturgical events in the cathedral. He joined King’s College as Chaplain in 2015. At King’s his role encompasses both worship in Chapel and pastoral care of all the students and staff.
Buck McDaniel
Buck McDaniel, born in 1994, is a project-based artist who writes orchestral music, works for the stage, chamber music, and sacred music. Originally from Columbia, Mississippi, his influences range from the American Minimalist tradition and music of the Roman Catholicism of his childhood in the Deep South. In 2023, his choral works spurred a collaboration with recording artist Sam Smith presented on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, and his chamber work Memory Ground (2021) for the Desdemona Ensemble was presented by The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Violinist Natalie Frakes presented his work Detroit Cycles (2016) for The Moth Radio Hour, and his Virginia Canticles (2021) for organ were commissioned by Grace Church in Keswick, Virginia.
In 2022, McDaniel curated a four-week festival with scholars Eric Thomas and Carla Roland of experimental liturgies focusing on Queer identity at The General Theological Seminary. This collaboration resulted in two works: The Chelsea Preludes (2022) for cellist Julia Henderson and harpist Sonia Bize, subsequently presented on WQXR and the Brooklyn Art Haus and Grace Church in Providence, Rhode Island, and The Heart of the Matter (2024), presented at Capitol Pride 2024 in Washington, D.C. Additionally, General Seminary commissioned his setting of the Anglican evening canticles, First Service (2023), commemorating 135th Anniversary of the consecration of the Memorial Chapel of the Good Shepherd. Earlier this year, he performed Holy Saturday (2024), a collaboration with performance artist Neal Medlyn in the Chapel, presented by The Kitchen. In addition to his roles at General, McDaniel serves as Director of Music at the Church of Our Saviour and Chapel of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus & Mary in the Archdiocese of New York.
His works for the stage include Fire on the Water (2019), a multi-media collaboration with producer Jacob Kirkwood and director Raymond Bobgan for Cleveland Public Theatre and Stranger in the Garden (2022), a one-act adaptation of Edith Wharton’s ‘Afterward’ for organ & narrator with actress Caitlin Caruso-Dobbs that premiered at The Actors’ Chapel in New York City. His works for organ have been championed internationally by artists Todd Wilson (Belfast Pipeworks Festival), James McVinnie (Lincoln Cathedral), Nicolas Haigh (Saint Thomas Church, 5th Avenue), and Derrick Meador (Saint Mark’s Cathedral, Shreveport).
A frequent collaborator with Kirkwood, McDaniel composed the sound installation Landscape Piece (2019) for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and the studio works Patterns on Dufy (2019) with saxophonist Noa Even and Difference & Repetition (2018). Other collaborations include Marefka Sketches (2018, Rev. 2023) for violist Carry Frey (Gold Bolus Recordings), an arrangement of Nico Muhly’s Bright Mass with Canons (2014) for the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, Muhly Variations (2012) for the Argot Trio (Centaur Records), and both concert and studio arrangements with Mourning [A] BLKstar, Elvis Depressedly, and ITEM.
He lives in New York City.
Graeme Napier
Fr. Graeme Napier was formerly Associate Priest in the Parish of Cowley St John, Oxford, where he has particular responsibility for liturgy, music, and events. Born and raised in Ireland, Fr. Graeme is a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford, and was trained for the priesthood at St Stephen’s House, the Anglo-Catholic seminary in that city. He served at St Andrew's Cathedral, Inverness before moving to the Anglican Church of Australia to serve as Assistant Priest, then Interim Rector at Christ Church St. Laurence, a busy inner-city Anglo-Catholic parish. Called to Westminster Abbey as Minor Canon and Succentor, he was responsible for daily worship, special services, and pastoral care for staff and volunteers. Appointed Precentor of St George's Cathedral, Perth, Fr. Graeme returned to Australia to oversee all worship and many special events in that cathedral. He has spent an academic year in full-time study at Nashotah House, Wisconsin, a seminary of the Episcopal Church, which involved time in New York City in the archives of General Theological Seminary.