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

“Can You Hear Me?” – Mental health at heart of new single from the Choir of Royal Holloway

Rupert Gough and The Choir of Royal Holloway have released CAN YOU HEAR ME? a new single with soprano Laura Wright, raising awareness of mental health and encouraging people to seek support and donate to mental health charities. The track, written by composer Thomas Hewitt Jones and lyricist Matt Harvey, speaks of the loneliness and despair felt by many around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Released by Signum Records, proceeds from the single will be donated to a number of UK-based mental health charities.

With the aim to guide people to seek help, the accompanying music video provides links to staystrong.org.uk. The #StayStrong campaign provides invaluable links to numerous mental health charities around the UK.

Listen to the track from your favourite provider here.

Watch the glorious video here.

Rupert Gough, Director of The Choir of Royal Holloway, says “All the musicians involved hope that the music will bring comfort and strength to many. They have enjoyed creating this single but they themselves face loneliness and despair as our singers are unlikely to be able to unite and sing together as a musical family for some time to come. Mental health was already an ever-increasing problem amongst university students and now, more than ever, we need to Stay Strong”.

Composer Thomas Hewitt Jones says “It was an absolute pleasure to be asked by Rupert Gough to compose and produce a lockdown single for him and the Royal Holloway choir together with eminent singer Laura Wright. For the lyrics I turned to my long-term collaborator Matt Harvey and we are so delighted to have written and recorded this to spread awareness of the fact that we all have mental health, and that there is no shame in anyone asking for help in difficult times.”

During the lockdown, Laura Wright has been working for a variety of organisations, charities and vulnerable individuals in her fight to address both the short and long term mental challenges of enforced isolation. Laura says, “I was so honoured to be invited to be part of this beautiful message. So many people are currently suffering in silence with loneliness and are showing signs of depression. The first step to healing is to open up and talk to someone about the thoughts in your head. We must look out for people around us asking “Can You Hear Me?” We mustn’t stop showing kindness. Kindness is key.”

Ola Gjeilo new single – Luminous Night

Ola Gjeilo has made short versions of his pieces Dark Night of the Soul and Luminous Night of the Soul featuring the parts closest to his heart. Luminous Night is the new single from Decca Classics, recorded with the choir Tenebrae, strings led by Thomas Gould, conducted by Nigel Short and available now. Click this link to listen from your favourite platform.

Dark Night will be released at a later date, and sheet music of both will be published together by Walton Music.

Choir of Royal Holloway release “The Hours” – choral music by Ben Parry

The new recording from the Royal Holloway Choir and conducted by Rupert Gough celebrates the music of Ben Parry.  Ben’s diverse compositions and arrangements include the popular Faber Carol Book and a burgeoning catalogue of choral music for Edition Peters and Oxford University Press.  Many pieces on this recording set the words of poems by Garth Bardsley, who says about Ben’s work “all of my poems stand alone but given the Parry treatment, I know that they take flight.”

1. Sun Soul
2. Early one morning
3. First Day
4. My heart’s in the Highlands
5. Music: An Ode
6. Spring Sonnet I
7. Spring Sonnet II
8. Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon
9. Snow
10. New Year Carol
11. My spirit sang all day (watch on YouTube here)
12. O nata lux de lumine
13. Ave verum corpus
14. God be in my head
15. The Lord’s Prayer
16. Sonnet XXVII
17. Ar hyd a nos
18. Nunc Dimittis
19. Golden slumbers
20. Eclipse
21. Lighten our darkness

Listen to the album from your preferred source from this link.

More info is available from Signum Records 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.

Both Esenvalds albums Gramophone Magazine choral recordings of the month

Gramophone Magazine has named albums of Eriks Esenvalds music for consecutive Choral Album of the Month awards. The rare honour is the result of 2 performances from choirs on the west coast of the USA.

There Will Come Soft Rains, performed by Pacific Lutheran University Choir of the West under the direction of Richard Nance is on the Signum label.

Translations, performed by Portland State Chamber Choir under the direction of Ethan Sperry is on the Naxos label.

VOCES8 album release After Silence III – Redemption

VOCES8 has released the latest part of their “After Silence” project. This is the third offering, called Redemption.

Track listing:
1. Spaséñiye, sodélal – Pavel Chesnokov
2. The Long Road – Ēriks Ešenvalds
3. Rückert Lieder: No. 4, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen – Gustav Mahler
Featuring Mary Bevan, soprano and Nick Deutsch, oboe
4. The Road Home – Stephen Paulus
5. Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich, BWV 150 – J. S. Bach
Featuring the Academy of Ancient Music

Redemption is available on Spotify and Apple Music.

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

Ola Gjeilo piano book “Night” released

Ola’s first publication with Chester Music has been released – the anthology of “Night” pieces for solo piano.

This folio collection, curated by Ola, comes with a specially written preface and features all 18 tracks from his Decca Classics album which was inspired by the twilight hours at his home in New York City.

The book is available at J.W. Pepper, Music Room, and other retailers.

Album available on all platforms and as a physical disc. Watch a video of the session here.

New Ešenvalds album by Portland State Chamber Choir on Naxos

Translations, the new Ešenvalds album by Portland State Chamber Choir and Ethan Sperry has been released on the Naxos label and is available for purchase, download, and streaming now. The album is the sequel to The Doors of Heaven (Naxos 2017) and features seven works, including the world premiere recording of Translation (2016) on a text by Oregon’s poet laureate Paulann Petersen.

The album explores the idea of ‘translation’ or the transformations that occur within us when we encounter the power of nature, legends, or the divine. PSCC conductor Ethan Sperry: ‘Each piece of Ešenvalds’ music addresses our essential nature — from the frustrations at our limitations to our desire to touch the divine — and translates this into musical language that moves us to our very core, deepening our understanding of what it means to be human.’

Listen to previews and order, download, or stream Translations.

Watch a release video on YouTube here.
Tracklist:

1. O salutaris hostia
2. The Heavens’ Flock
3. Translation
4. My Thoughts / Мысли мои
5. Vineta
6. The Legend of the Walled-In Woman
7. In paradisum

Translations was recorded in 2019 at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Mount Angel, Oregon, with producer Erick Lichte, and engineers John Atkinson and Doug Tourtelot.