The VOCES8 Foundation welcomes friends from around the world to its home in London for its latest winter festival of iconic oratorios, traditional songs and new premieres, as its album ‘A Choral Christmas’ is released on Decca Classics.
LIVE From London Christmas 2023 will comprise six festive concerts released online from 4 December 2023 and remaining available on-demand until 7 January 2024, with a line-up including triple Grammy-nominated US ensemble Skylark, The Gesualdo Six, VOCES8, Apollo5, the VOCES8 Foundation Choir and its Orchestra, the festival will see the return of renowned seasonal works including Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, a musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and an extra special free-access family event to be gifted ahead of the festival.
Tickets for all concerts can be purchased via www.livefromlondon.org. Following the live stream on 4 December, all other performances will be available to watch live or on demand from 5 December until 7 January 2024, with the exception of ‘Silver Bells’ (out 23 December).
LIVE From London Summer 2023 launches
Filmed in beautiful locations around the world and accompanied by suitcases bursting with exclusive performances, LIVE From London’s tenth festival offers you ‘a drop of golden sun’.
Host ensemble VOCES8 features in four of the nine concerts and begins by taking you exclusively behind-the-scenes on the group’s European summer tour. Barnaby Smith leads VOCES8 and members of its Foundation Choir in a Byrd 400 celebration which includes his Mass for Five Voices sung by Apollo5. Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir is the centerpoint of VOCES8 and its VOCES8 Scholars’ concert filmed from idyllic Milton Abbey. The group’s final concert sprinkling of Stardust pairs Britten (arr. Imogen Holst) Rejoice in the Lamb conducted by Barnaby Smith, alongside the world premiere of To Sing of Love, a new concerto written for Jack Liebeck and The VOCES8 Foundation Choir and Orchestra by popular American composer Taylor Scott Davis.
Internationally renowned festival newcomers include Wishful Singing in concert with composer and pianist Ola Gjeilo, Tafelmusik performs Mozart and Haydn with star Baroque violinist Rachel Podger, and Chamber Choir Ireland conducted by Eamonn Dougan, unveils a beautiful programme of Sir James MacMillan and his influences, ‘O Radiant Dawn’ - prefaced by an interview with the composer himself. Making a requested return, I Fagiolini sings of The Seasons in its engagingly dramatic programme ‘Au Naturel’, and Mary Bevan and Davina Clarke present a Handel concert of ‘Sweet Stillness’ from their recent album release.
Nine concerts featuring six centuries of stunning repertoire, filmed in locations from Toronto to Denmark, Dorset and Dublin – LIVE From London Summer 2023 almost certainly includes ‘a few of your favourite things’.
Purchase tickets here
LIVE from London summer festival 2021
The LIVE from London festival returns in July and August!
Sprinkling ‘Stardust’ through a summer festival celebrating cycles of renewal and regeneration in nature and spirit, VOCES8 leads an internationally renowned cast joyfully exploring the yin and yang of our existence and looking forward to ‘A New Day’.
Appearing in every main festival performance, VOCES8 unites an exclusive line-up featuring new festival invitees The King’s Singers, Chineke!, Suzi Digby’s ORA Singers, a star quartet of Julian Bliss, Jack Liebeck, Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Katya Apekisheva, Mary Bevan, Zeb Soanes, the London Contemporary Orchestra and Robert Ames. Special concerts coming from the International Choral Biennale ‘Live From Haarlem’ include Cappella Amsterdam and the Doelen Ensemble, Consensus Vocalis, Laurens Collegium, Efterklang and the South Denmark Girls’ Choir. Returning favourites include I Fagiolini, Apollo5 and the English Chamber Orchestra.
From Kirkland Snider’s Mass for the Endangered, Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, a Mozart piano concerto, through to music by David Lang, Eriks Ešenvalds, a cappella and choral favourites, world premieres by Taylor Scott Davis, Afrodeutsche, Donna McKevitt, Paul Smith, Joanna Marsh and Ken Burton; voices, instruments and dance create a summer adventure to fuel community and give wings to one’s soul. Join us “singing till his heaven fills, ‘Tis love of earth that he instils,” (Meredith – The Lark Ascending).
Click here to see more and to buy tickets.
Live From London – Christmas festival 2020
Live From London returns with a Christmas festival running from December 1st – January 6th
The festival is split into two parts:
Live From London – Christmas: The first 11 concerts from 1st – 25th December and including the Gabrieli’s first Bach concert on Christmas Day
Bach for Christmas: All 6 concerts by the Gabrieli Consort & Players – Bach’s Christmas Oratorio BWV248 – starting on 25th December and ending on Epiphany, 6th January
A particular highlight on 15th December is the Choir of Westminster Abbey singing from Westminster Abbey itself. Viewers from around the world will this year have the rare opportunity to share in the magic of the annual Abbey Christmas concert.
The repertoire across the festival ranges from Bach, Praetorius, Eccard, Charpentier and Tallis to Howells, Britten, Pärt, Tavener, Michael McGlynn, Ola Gjeilo, and arrangements of best-loved Christmas pop, all filmed in ultra-high definition and featuring your favourite seasonal a cappella
Award-winning groups featuring include VOCES8, The Choir of Westminster Abbey, the Gabrieli Consort & Players, The Tallis Scholars, Take 6, I Fagiolini, London Adventist Chorale, ANÚNA, amarcord, The Aeolians, and Apollo5
With its first concert since lock-down, the Gabrieli Consort & Players perform Bach for Christmas, joined by a stunning lineup of soloists (including Carolyn Sampson, Anna Dennis, Tim Mead, Roderick Williams and Ashley Riches). Experience Bach’s Christmas Oratorio cantatas, each on the day for which they are liturgically written.
The festival supports the VOCES8 Foundation’s global message of ‘music education for all’ by gifting youth ensembles from across the world a stage for their singing in our Young Performer Spotlight (YPS). The lineup includes: Gabrieli Roar, VOCES8 Scholars, Canterbury Cathedral Girls’ Choir, VERSA, National Youth Chamber Choir of Great Britain, Voices of Singapore Children’s Choir and German Gents.
The festival includes six new VOCES8 commissions from Ken Burton, Melissa Dunphy, Jocelyn Hagen, Taylor Scott Davis, Paul Smith and Roderick Williams that will be published by Edition Peters in the VOCES8 Singles range, as well the premiere of a new violin part in Men and Angels written by Alec Roth especially for Rachel Podger.
More information and tickets sales can be found here.
Live From London – livestream concert series launched from VOCES8 Centre
‘Live From London‘ is a new, paid-for online festival from the VOCES8 Foundation, featuring some of the world’s finest award-winning vocal ensembles: VOCES8, I Fagiolini, Stile Antico, The Swingles, The Sixteen (from Kings Place), The Gesualdo Six, Apollo5, Chanticleer (from San Francisco) and a special guest appearance by The Academy of Ancient Music. The ensembles will be performing their favourite works, and pieces for which they’ve become renowned, singing repertoire from the Renaissance to contemporary A Cappella.
The promotional trailer for ‘Live From London’ is here.
The festival is a heart-warming display of vocal ensembles helping each other in a time of crisis. These concerts will be some of the first performances by the ensembles since the start of the lock-down restrictions at the beginning of the year.
The festival will be broadcast in HD every Saturday for ten weeks from the 1st August 2020 at VOCES8’s beautiful Centre (St Anne and St Agnes Church), in the heart of the City of London.
Taking the lead from current sporting events, the concerts will be broadcast from a closed venue. Singers and crew will be following the strict government guidelines about safety and distancing in the workplace.
Viewers will be able to pay for exclusive access to the entire season or individual concert tickets. Season passes are £80 (only £8 per concert, per household). Single concert tickets will be available for £12.50. Concessions have been crafted for students and choirs across the world, as well as special deals for promoters and venues. It has been designed to raise money for artists, venues and promoters to cover their COVID-19 losses, and to reunite the world’s many singers, and audiences with much needed live concerts.
A portion of all ticket sales will be put towards funding for grassroots music education, and to addressing topics of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in choral music. Artists will share income from season ticket sales, as well as individual concert income.
This approach goes beyond free streaming on social media, allowing a revenue channel for promoters, venues and artists (most of whom are freelance).
More information, and tickets for ‘Live From London’ can be found at: voces8.foundation/livefromlondon
Apollo5 new EP “Where All Roses Go” released
Where All Roses Go – EP Vol. 1
To mark the tenth Anniversary of Apollo5, the group has recorded 3 digital EPs which will form the album “Where All Roses Go”. The first EP is released now!
EP Vol.1 Track List:
Veni Domine – Francisco Guerrero
This Marriage – Eric Whitacre
Civitas sancti tui – William Byrd
Mother of God, here I stand – John Tavener
Edo Lullaby – trad. Japanese arr. Paul Smith
Two further digital EPs will be released over the coming months and the full album will be released in the new year. The album will be a digital and physical release.
See how and where to stream and download the album here. Buy the physical album here.
The whole album explores that most complex human emotion: love.
Love has many different manifestations. It is a rich tapestry intricately woven with conflicting strands: life and loss; beauty and mortality; brave romance and fragility in rejection; the steadfast devotion of a mother’s love (heightened by the awareness of inevitable separation); and in the Christian narrative the Virgin Mary and the eventual ultimate sacrifice.
The repertoire chosen for this first EP reflects love in a variety of these strands. This Marriage, by Eric Whitacre is a beautiful setting of an extract of a poem by Rumi which is a blessing for love within a marriage. Both Veni Domine by Francisco Guerrero and Civitas Sancti Tui by William Byrd speak of God’s redeeming love in the face of human despair. Mother of God, by John Tavener and Edo Lullaby, arr. by Paul Smith reflect the love of the Mother: the first as a prayer to the Virgin Mary and the second a lullaby sung by a mother to her child.
The cover artwork and title refer to that most potent symbol of love and its transience: the rose. Apollo5 explores this idea through a varied collection of repertoire spanning 500 years and several musical styles. The release includes works by composers as broad-ranging as Josquin des Prez, Francisco Guerrero, Eric Whitacre, John Taverner, Claude Debussy, Francis Poulenc, Gerald Finzi and Michael McGlynn. The programme also features arrangements written especially for Apollo5 (including pop songs by Elton John and Seal) and several new commissions from contemporary composers such as David Fawcett, Paul Smith, Taylor Davis and Fraser Wilson.
Apollo5 unites this diverse collection of choral music, from some of the earliest known polyphonic writing through to the world of pop, in an energetic exploration of the joy and despair of human love.
Apollo5 is part of the VOCES8 Foundation.
VOCES8 Foundation #LiveFromHome series
The VOCES8 Foundation continues its #LiveFromHome series this week. Each day at 2pm (UK) / 10am (EST) a member of the Foundation – which comprises VOCES8, Apollo5, Paul Smith, the VOCES8 Scholars as well as choral leaders – offers a broadcast on a different aspect of the choral world, interactive and participatory. On Thursday 9th the US composer Jake Runestad will be onscreen in The Weekly Interview. He follows previous interviews with Ola Gjeilo and Roxanna Panufnik.
#LiveFromHome info is at the Foundation website at voces8.foundation/livefromhome
And if you’re enjoying it all, please consider donating to help to keep producing music in the future.
voces8.foundation/donate
Apollo5 USA Winter tour 2020
Vocal ensemble Apollo5 are on their latest USA tour! The 6-date trip takes them from San Francisco to Chicago:
20th February, 2020 Palo Alto, California
21st February, 2020 San Francisco, California
23rd February, 2020 Albuquerque, New Mexico
26th February, 2020 Chicago, Illinois
28th February, 2020 Kalamazoo, Michigan
1st March, 2020 Detroit, Michigan
The mixed repertoire programming includes The Skye Boat Song – arranged by Fraser Wilson, which you can see in a great new video here. The song is also included in the new album O Radiant Dawn.
Apollo5 is one of the ensembles making up the VOCES8 Foundation.
Reflections – new album from Paul Smith
Reflections is the new album of material composed by Paul Smith, and featuring performers Paul Smith, Clare Stewart, Neil Valentine, Apollo5, VOCES8 and the VOCES8 Foundation choir.
BBC Music Magazine has given the album a 4-star review: An immersive (and effective) endeavour, with plainsong, modern instrumental and vocal hues and early opera sitting together surprisingly comfortably. Definitely one for headphones and a darkened room.
The album launch concert is now available to watch on VOCES8’s Facebook page here.
Buy the album here.
Sheet music for one of the tracks, Nunc Dimittis, is available from Edition Peters here.
Paul’s own website is here.
“O Radiant Dawn” – new album release from Apollo5
O Radiant Dawn, the new album from Apollo5, is released on the VCM Records label on May 31st.
From sacred music to pastoral, folk and spiritual repertoire the group explores the human journey through birth, love, struggle, the end of life and reflection. The album’s repertoire stretches from Perotin to MacMillan; the programme features arrangements written especially for Apollo5 and new commissions from composers Alexander Levine and Fraser Wilson.
• O Radiant Dawn – James MacMillan
• Beata Viscera I – Pérotin
• Beata Viscera – William Byrd
• Ne Irascaris Domine – William Byrd
• Wishes – Fraser Wilson
• Beata Viscera II – Pérotin arr. Apollo5
• Scarborough Fair – trad. English arr. Fraser Wilson
• The Skye Boat Song – trad. Scottish arr. Fraser Wilson
• The Dark Island – Iain MacLachlan arr. Paul Smith for Apollo5
• I Love, Alas, I Love Thee – Thomas Morley
• The Silver Swan – Orlando Gibbons
• Sfogava Con Le Stelle – Claudio Monteverdi
• Der König In Thule – Robert Schumann
• The Call – Vaughan Williams arr. Harry D. Bennett
• My Spirit Sang All Day – Gerald Finzi
• Beata Viscera III – Pérotin arr. Apollo5
• Oh, You Wide Steppe – trad. Russian arr. Alexander Levine
Clare Stewart of Apollo5 spoke to Robert Hugill about the album – read it all here.
To celebrate the release the group visited the Radio 3 In Tune studio and performed a couple of tracks live. Listen again to the programme here.
Buy the album on Amazon here.
Singing live at BBC Radio 3’s “In Tune” studio