Choral Music

With a compositional voice grounded in traditional harmonies, Sandford's choral works masterfully paint text with modern yet accessible music. His use of dissonance places his music clearly in the 21st century, while his attention to the inherent musicality of the rhythms and emphasis in texts allows words and music to intertwine effortlessly.

With plainchant as a foundational influence, Sandford loves to showcase the expressiveness of the human voice through lyrical lines seemingly free of metric constraints. Other influences include Renaissance polyphony, church hymns, the modal harmonies of Vaughan Williams, and the vocal works of Schubert, Faure, Durufle, and Lauridsen. Although he also composes chamber and orchestral music, above all he loves setting text, choosing everything from well-known biblical texts, to obscure medieval texts, to Shakespeare and e.e. cummings, to living composers Anna George Meek and Wendell Berry.

Sandford holds a composition degree from the Hartt School, and has completed summer programs in choral conducting, choral pedagogy, and choral composition at Westminster Choir College and Oxford University. He has works published by Boosey & Hawkes and GIA Music, and is a member of ASCAP.