Eleanor Daley – Composer of The Gate of the Year
Eleanor Daley (b. 1955) was born and raised in Parry Sound, Ontario. Her father was a doctor, and her mother was a homemaker, amateur singer, and pianist. Daley’s earliest musical participation was in a rhythm band, followed by piano lessons starting at age five. Through middle and high school, she played flute, and she began playing the organ for Sunday school in high school. Daley earned her Bachelor of Music Degree in Organ Performance from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and she holds diplomas in piano and organ from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, and Trinity College, England.
“Her choral works exemplify a balanced marriage between the text and the music, with singable soaring melodies. She has published over eighty choral compositions, has won numerous awards, and is commissioned extensively throughout North America with performances and recordings in Canada, the United States, South America, Europe, and Southeast Asia.”
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 11 – An interview with Eleanor Daley by Hilary Apfelstadt.
Says Ms. Daley about her path to composing:
“Composing began truly by accident, through necessity. My mother saw an ad for the Fairlawn music director position in a newspaper and told me to apply. There was only one book of introits in that church, and one day, I decided that I would go out of my mind if we did one of those introits again: so I started to write some for the choir. I realized that I really enjoyed doing this, and just for the heck of it, decided to write one every week. It turned out to be a great exercise for me (I have no idea how many I’ve written since, but it’s a lot!)… From there, I started writing descants, set the three-year lectionary of psalms, and pieces for the full choir.
There were four women in the choir who sang beautifully together: so I started writing pieces for them, to be sung in the service (Rise Up My Love, Ave Verum Corpus, O My Dear Heart, Os Justi, This Sanctuary of My Soul, etc.)”
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 11 – An interview with Eleanor Daley by Hilary Apfelstadt.
Regarding the evolution of a composition:
“I almost always choose the text first, because if it doesn’t speak to me, I have no interest in setting it to music. Once the text is decided upon, the first thing would be a structural plan and hopefully, the germ of a melody, by which the rest of the work will evolve.”
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 11 – An interview with Eleanor Daley by Hilary Apfelstadt.
Eleanor Daley set the text for The Gate of the Year in 2004, when it was commissioned, performed, and recorded for the Alliance World Festival of Women’s Singing in Salt Lake City, Utah.
CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 51 Number 11 – An interview with Eleanor Daley by Hilary Apfelstadt.