Home – VOCES8 and Eric Whitacre album release

Two branches of choral royalty entwine with majestic harmony on the latest release from Grammy-winning composer Eric Whitacre and acclaimed vocal ensemble VOCES8. The album includes a world premiere, All Seems Beautiful To Me, and a new recording of Whitacre’s deeply moving 2019 cantata The Sacred Veil.

The five-minute work All Seems Beautiful To Me is based on a poem by Walt Whitman (from Song of the Open Road) celebrating the human spirit’s capacity for generosity and growth. It was commissioned by the United States Air Force Band and here receives its world premiere recording. Also included is a new recording of one of Whitacre’s most frequently performed and much loved pieces, The Seal Lullaby.

The album also includes Sing Gently and Go, Lovely Rose. The former was composed during lockdown specially for Whitacre’s Virtual Choir, made up of over 17,500 singers from 124 different countries. The latter was Whitacre’s first ever composition, written 30 years ago, and thus the new album is also, in part, a joyful celebration of his three decades as a composer.

The longest work is the twelve-movement, hour-long 2019 cantata The Sacred Veil for choir, cello (Emma Denton), and piano (Christopher Glynn). The text, by Whitacre’s close friend and long-time collaborator Charles Anthony Silvestri, commemorates the death of the poet’s young wife Julie from ovarian cancer. It journeys from the growth of their love, through the birth of their children, to their struggle with the illness. One particularly striking section ‘You Rise, I Fall’ involves extraordinary descending and ascending tone-clusters mirroring the emotional states of the dying woman and her husband.

Listen / purchase links here.

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:

1. Veni Domine – Francisco Guerrero

2. This Marriage – Eric Whitacre

3. Civitas sancti tui – William Byrd

4. Mother of God, here I stand – John Tavener

5. 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.

New VOCES8 EP release: ‘Devotion’

After Silence is the celebration of VOCES8‘s 15th anniversary. Successive online EPs released in four chapters – Remembrance, Devotion, Redemption and Elemental – will be followed by After Silence, a double album with a beautifully produced booklet, illustrated with contemporary artworks and illuminating notes that add an extra dimension to the exploration of the themes.

Devotion has a dual aspect: religious observance or divine worship, on the one hand; the fact of being deeply attached to a beloved object, on the other. These sacred and secular passions provide inspiration for the transcendent harmonies displayed in the selection of works that make up the second part of After Silence, reflecting on love, death and the life of the spirit.

RepertoireA Boy and a Girl  Eric Whitacre
The Three Kings  Jonathan Dove
Lully, Lulla, Lullay  Philip Stopford
Lagrime d’amante al sepolcro dell’amata  Claudio Monteverdi
Jesus bleibet meine Freude BWV 147  Johann Sebastian Bach

Pre-order or stream Devotion here!

VOCES8 in USA for Winter Tour 2020

VOCES8 are in the USA again with a 16-date concert tour, with plenty of workshop activity too. Amongst events on this trip are an Instagram Live event with Eric Whitacre on Feb 16th at 1pm EST to coincide with the group’s video release of Eric’s ‘A Boy and a Girl’.

All the group’s tour dates are at www.voces8.com/tour

David Allsopp at the Concertgebouw

David will sing make his Concertgebouw solo debut on Monday 2nd July when he joins the Netherlands Radio Choir and composer/conductor Eric Whitacre in a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms”. See more about the concert here.

This year is the centenary of Bernstein’s birth, with David the choice countertenor in other performances in Europe. The choir Tenebrae has recently released an album called “Symphonic Psalms and Prayers” on Signum Records which featured David performing the same iconic solo.

See more about David here.

David Allsopp sings Bernstein

Chichester Psalms concerts and “a highly desirable disc” release

Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday celebrations sees David Allsopp giving performances of the iconic countertenor solos of the Chichester Psalms in Malta, in the Netherlands as well as on a new album. On April 7th Wayne Marshall conducts the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra in its 50th Anniversary celebration concert. See more info here. Then on July 2nd Eric Whitacre conducts the Netherlands Radio Choir in a performance at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. See more info here.

A recording of the Psalms featuring David, performed by Tenebrae, BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Nigel Short is available from Signum Records here. The Financial Times gave it a 5 star review, calling it “a highly desirable disc”.