The centrepiece in this collection of recent works by Tarik O’Regan for choir and/or orchestra is A Celestial Map of the Sky (2014). Commissioned in 2015 by The Manchester Grammar School to celebrate its quincentenary in a premiere that brought together – in addition to the school’s own choir – the combined forces of the Hallé Orchestra and Youth Choir, A Celestial Map of the Sky draws inspiration from two woodcuts of star charts by the Renaissance painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer, which date from around the same time as the school’s foundation.

Rather than surrounding the maps with allegorical figures from ancient Greek and Roman myths, Dürer instead incorporated the images of four ancient astronomers from Europe and further east. It’s a rather appropriate metaphor for O’Regan’s own inclusive, ‘humanist’ aesthetic, which also references an eclectic array of musical influences ranging from Renaissance polyphony to the music of North Africa and minimalism.

A Celestial Map of the Sky also draws on a wide range of star-inspired poetic texts from Hopkins, Whitman, Mahmood Jamal, Francis William Bourdillon and Hart Crane. Somehow O’Regan combines these strands to create a work of focused intensity, reflection and power. It opens with a four-note rising figure on flute and harp (F C A flat E flat) underpinned by glimmering strings in a moment that mixes Haydn’s Creation with John Adams’s Harmonium. This soon gives way to a rhythmically animated section, to Whitman’s words ‘I see the cities of the earth’, characterised by assertive unisons and forward propulsion. There follows a quieter instrumental section featuring languid lines and ambiguous harmonies in strings, eventually leading the music back to the opening four-note figure and a partial recapitulation, which finally builds up to a marvellously resounding C major chord.

None of the other works on this disc quite manages to capture the same spark and spontaneity, although O’Regan’s reworking of ideas from his chamber opera Heart of Darkness (2011) produces several impressive moments, including at one point a lively fugue. Plenty of spark also belongs to Raï (2007) and Chaâbi (2012), both of which draw on North African (especially Algerian) dance rhythms and patterns. The other star player on this recording is the Hallé Orchestra itself, illuminating with passion and precision the bright colours of O’Regan’s immensely enjoyable and refreshing sound world.