anon.: There is no rose

Here is a beautiful new recording exploring the music and themes of Advent, including some well-known carols and antiphons alongside some newer, less frequently heard pieces. An ideal present!

The Choir of Queens’ College, Cambridge is well known in the UK, singing three times a week at services in Queens’ College Chapel. They also travel abroad outside the academic term, with recent tours to Hong Kong, USA, France, Germany, Italy and Belgium.

Silas Wollston, their director, has been principal continuo player and assistant conductor to Sir John Eliot Gardiner since 1999 and has a versatile and varied career as researcher, performer and composer.

Heavenly voices raised in honour of the Christmas season. Inspirational choral music for Christmas from one of England's finest choirs in a programme chosen from some of the greatest church music of the past. This diverse programme brings together many musical styles and traditions, from the clarity and precision of medieval carols to the emotional intensity of choral music for the Russian Orthodox church. The music varies from quiet, still pieces to huge, exciting crescendos of sound.

The international award-winning octet, VOCES8, has established itself at the forefront of British a cappella. Performing a repertoire ranging from Renaissance polyphony to unique Jazz and Pop arrangements, the group has been praised for stunning performance, exquisite singing and creating a sound that spans the entire range of vocal colour.

Soothing English sacred choral music from the Tudor and Stuart periods, by some of England’s finest composers. Perfect music to calm the soul, performed by the outstanding Richmond Consort. The consort is made up of singers who regularly perform in the UK’s most prestigious cathedrals and colleges. They specialise in early music both sacred and secular and perform regularly throughout the UK and the rest of Europe.

Music by the composer of the motet Ubi Caritas – as heard at the wedding of Kate and William.

In this CD Con Anima pairs cycles by Paul Mealor (Now sleeps the crimson petal) and Morten Lauridsen (Madrigali: Six ‘Fire Songs’ on Italian Renaissance poems).

Paul Mealor’s short choral cycle, Now sleeps the crimson petal (2010), consists of four linked madrigals on texts connected by their reference to roses, either directly or as a metaphor for love. Paul Mealor’s music has rapidly entered the repertoire of choirs and singers around the world. His sacred motets, songs and cycles have been performed, broadcast and recorded by artists in the UK, the USA and much further afield. Paul was catapulted to international attention when 2.5 billion people (the largest audience in broadcasting history) heard his motet, Ubi caritas, performed by the choirs of Westminster Abbey and Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal and conducted by James O’Donnell, at the wedding ceremony of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at Westminster Abbey on 29 April 2011.

Since its foundation in 2001, Aberdeen’s Con Anima Chamber Choir has built up an impressive reputation in the north-east of Scotland and further afield. It gives an average of five performances a year in and around Aberdeen, and has performed in several other places in Scotland including Glasgow, Paisley and Fochabers.

Con Anima performs sacred and secular music from the 16th century to the present day, ranging from Renaissance polyphony (Byrd, Gibbons, Carver) and well-loved classics such as Mozart’s Requiem to world premières of new British works. Under the baton of its principal conductor, Dr Paul Mealor, the choir is becoming known for its skilled and sensitive interpretation of contemporary European and American choral music. As well as regularly performing Paul Mealor’s music, including several world premières, it has developed a particularly fruitful link with the renowned American composer Morten Lauridsen and has featured his music in several concerts since 2007. Further information can be viewed at www.conanima.org.uk

Following the success of the beautiful a cappella choral album Peace: A Choral Album for our Times (AV 0039), the Handel and Haydn Society offers a seasonal offering that once again fuses the familiar with new works which are destined to inspire the festive imagination. Sample Jennifer Higdon’s atmospheric O Magnum Mysterium with glasses and chimes, or Eric Whitacre’s harmonious Lux aurumque, alongside longtime favourites such as Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming and The Coventry Carol in a unique arrangement with hand bells. Another special feature is the world premiere recording of Tom Vignieri’s Hodie Christus natus est, commissioned for the Handel and Haydn Society. For the ensemble’s Welsh-born Music Director Grant Llewellyn this recording is a deeply personal project, recapturing the annual spirit of caroling, maintaining tradition whilst forging new frontiers.