A busy and exciting season ahead, featuring a full programme of touring, new recording and sheet music publications, plus education workshops and residencies.

VOCES8 returned from its summer break to welcome new soprano, Eleonore Cockerham, into the ranks. The first tour of the season is already underway, to Ekaterinburg (Russia), singing with the La Folle Journée organisation. Other touring plans this year include visiting Mexico and Singapore for the first time, and giving other concerts in the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Spain, Norway, Sweden, and the USA. All tour dates appear at www.voces.com/tour.

In just about every concert for the season the ensemble will perform a piece by the internationally renowned composer Jonathan Dove, who is the new Composer in Residence. A recording made last year at Abbey Road studios of Dove’s “The Passing of the Year” will be released at the start of 2018.

Following on from the successes of the group’s published sheet music, a new anthology of popular pieces for SATB will be published by Edition Peters in October this year. Expect to see music ranging from London Grammar’s “Strong” to Barney Smith’s a cappella arrangement of Fauré’s “Pie Jesu”. This year should also finally see the sheet music published of the group’s most often requested arrangement!

The Milton Abbey Summer School was another huge success in July/August, with the 2018 edition already nearly booked up. This is the feature education week for the group each year, though there is so much else going on all through the year. Check out the websites for the Gresham Centre and the VCM Foundation for information on what is happening.