choral music
theartsdesk at the Three Choirs Festival - Passion in the CathedralSaturday, 02 August 2025
“Powerful, Timeless, Inspiring” it says on the front cover of the programme-book for this year’s supposedly 297th Three Choirs Festival at Hereford. So please leave your frivolity at the cathedral door with your gun and your mobile phone.Richard... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Kaljuste review - Arvo Pärt 90th birthday tributeFriday, 01 August 2025
Arvo Pärt was into his 40s before he made had his Big Musical Idea: simplicity. He has spent the subsequent half-century pursuing this ideal, largely through the religious choral music that has been dubbed Holy Minimalism. And in this year of his... Read more... |
Eva Quartet, St Cyprian's review - polyphonic blissMonday, 09 June 2025
Eva Quartet are four outstanding Bulgarian voices of polyphonic purity and depth, drawn from the legendary choir Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares, who guested on Kate Bush’s classic Eighties album The Sensual World.Soprano Gergana Dimitrova, mezzo-... Read more... |
Stile Antico, Wigmore Hall review - a glorious birthday celebrationTuesday, 13 May 2025
There was a wonderful festal spirit at the Wigmore Hall last night, as the vocal ensemble Stile Antico ran through a Greatest Hits selection in celebration of their 20th anniversary, in front of a packed and enthusiastic audience. The 12-strong... Read more... |
MacMillan St John Passion, Boylan, National Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Hill, NCH Dublin review - flares around a fine ChristSaturday, 19 April 2025
Never make your mind up too soon about any large-scale work by a genius. Back in 2010, I had my doubts about James MacMillan’s first Passion, hearing in the impact of Colin Davis’s Barbican performance a halfway house between the composer's... Read more... |
First Person: St John's College choral conductor Christopher Gray on recording 'Lament & Liberation'Saturday, 19 April 2025
When I arrived at St John’s College, Cambridge, in April 2023, it was a daunting prospect to be taking over the reins of a choir with such a distinguished recording heritage: there have been more than 100 albums since the 1950s on some of the UK’s... Read more... |
London Choral Sinfonia, Waldron, Smith Square Hall review - contemporary choral classics alongside an ambitious premiereWednesday, 16 April 2025
The London Choral Sinfonia are a very impressive group, a professional choir who are churning out terrific recordings at a breakneck pace – I reviewed their latest release of Malcolm Arnold on theartsdesk only last week – as well as a busy schedule... Read more... |
MacMillan's Ordo Virtutum, BBC Singers, Jeannin, Milton Court review - dramatic journey of a medieval soulFriday, 14 February 2025
Does any living composer write better for choirs, or more demandingly when circumstances allow, than James MacMillan? Admirable as it is to have extant words and music for a music-drama, morality play, call it what you will, by medieval pioneer... Read more... |
BBC Singers, Aurora Orchestra, Collon, Kings Place review - on the way to heaven via King's CrossSaturday, 01 February 2025
Just now, music about survival, transcendence and the afterlife may have a special resonance for the BBC Singers. After all, the supremely versatile century-old chamber choir has endured its own near-death experience – at the hands of the BBC top... Read more... |
Messiah, Wild Arts, Chichester Cathedral review - a dynamic battle between revelatory light and Stygian gloomWednesday, 18 December 2024
The Wild Arts Ensemble was founded by Orlando Jopling in 2022 to create a dynamic, pared-back style of performance in which, as he put it, the “costumes, set and props… can be packed up into a couple of suitcases that we can take with us on the... Read more... |
Bach Mendelssohn Festival, Part I, Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra review - the flame that never diedWednesday, 04 December 2024
“I am not better than my fathers.” Cracked, pained, occasionally rasping, rising to a fearsome roar then subsiding to a throaty whisper, Sir Bryn Terfel’s still-formidable bass-baritone made the great vault of Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford... Read more... |
Wyn, Dwyer, McAteer, RSNO & Choirs, Diakun, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - ebullient but bittyMonday, 18 November 2024
Carmina Burana isn’t a masterpiece: it’s primarily a bit of fun; fun to listen to, fun to play, really fun to sing.Few and far between are the performances where it ever manages to be much more than that, though this RSNO concert came close, mainly... Read more... |
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