It鈥檚 that time of year: hustle and bustle, holiday planning, the stores playing those same 15 to 20 songs over and over.
But a North Texas-based music writer and conductor is also discovering something new in the music we鈥檝e known for decades on end.
spoke with the Texas Standard about his and a of the carols he鈥檚 arranged for this weekend at St. Andrew Methodist Church in Plano.
Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below. This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity.
Texas Standard: Tell us a little bit about this assignment you had to rearrange carols.
Taylor Davis: So I鈥檝e been long friends with the artistic director of VOCES8, which is this British a cappella group, and they are world-renowned. And in the pandemic, they were sort of retooling so that they could continue to work. And, all of a sudden, he had this idea of doing these arrangements for a broadcast that would be somewhat distanced and whatnot.
And we had no idea that the recording would go so well and turn into something larger. We just thought we were doing something good in the Christmas of 鈥�21. Then Decca [Classics] got a hold of it, and all of a sudden we鈥檝e got an album on our hands.
Did you get to choose which carols you worked on?
I did not. I鈥檓 the lowest person on the food chain here. But they did give me just sort of carte blanche once the carols were chosen. I had kind of a blank slate and just ran with it.
Let鈥檚 talk about how you take something like 鈥淛oy to the World鈥� and make it new. That鈥檚 got to be quite a challenge.
It is a challenge. And yet, there鈥檚 a very long history of great choral tradition in the UK and Europe in general, which is where a lot of our carols come from. And so, if I was having to acknowledge the fact that I was sort of going to home base for a lot of these, so it was it was daunting.
I felt like I needed to keep true to my sound, the sounds that swirl in my head, and also kind of weigh them against sounds that have come before me. You know, am I replicating something or am I acknowledging something that has already happened?
So I tinkered a little bit and tried some things on and hopefully didn鈥檛 steal from anybody. There are a few tips of the hat along the way, just acknowledging the greats that wrote arrangements before me. But it was a fun challenge.
What was the most challenging part of this assignment?
Not necessarily knowing what I was getting into when I flew over. The reality was we were still masking, we were still distancing. People were having to test before the recording sessions. And some singers went down, a couple of instrumentalists went down, and we were just having to sort of keep our heads on a swivel.
And it doesn鈥檛 sound like much now, but it felt like a lot then. And so the fact that these things were created for this one moment 鈥� and then inside that one moment, anything might happen 鈥� was just sort of a bizarre feeling.
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I think that a lot of folks think of Christmas music as largely celebratory. But then you come across a song like 鈥淥 Come, O Come Emmanuel.鈥� What was it like rearranging that?
So on that one specifically, I put in a key change toward the very beginning. And it has garnered all this attention on social media. And that really caught me by surprise, because I truly was just thinking, 鈥淗ere鈥檚 this ancient chant. How can I bring it into the modern era, and how can I acknowledge that we鈥檙e singing a song about darkness in the darkness of the pandemic?鈥�
So I put this little twist in there, and I just thought I was doing something unique 鈥� almost was worried that it was kitschy, even, a little. And then lo and behold, we put it out on social media for the first time, and people sort of lost their minds that this one key change.
You have other work on albums, but I understand you鈥檝e said this one is something of a high watermark for your career.
Well, you know, Bing Crosby鈥檚 鈥淲hite Christmas鈥� is a Decca Classic, and it just is very humbling to have a Christmas album on the Decca Classics record label when people like Bing Crosby or Ella Fitzgerald contributed so mightily to the sounds that we listen to each holiday season.
And there will be more things, I鈥檓 sure, in my career that I鈥檒l eventually say, 鈥淥h no, this is a high watermark,鈥� but I鈥檓 just very humbled to be in the presence of those in the last century that have created this incredible record label.
Tell us about what鈥檚 happening on Sunday at the Plano church, St. Andrew Methodist, where you serve as music director.
So this will be the first time these carols are done live. We did them for the recording session in the UK, but they鈥檝e never been done as a collection. So when the orchestra shows up, which is a bunch of professionals, sort of a hodgepodge group, to make music with my choir, this will be the first time that that I鈥檝e gotten to conduct them.
This will be the first time they鈥檙e heard by a congregation or an audience that鈥檚 not on the other side of a screen. So it鈥檚 just a real treat for me to get to be a part of it.
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