Eric Edward Whitacre is a Grammy-winning American composer, conductor, and speaker best known for his choral music.
The King's Singers are a British a cappella vocal ensemble founded in 1968. They are named after King's College in Cambridge, England, where the group was formed by six choral scholars. In the United Kingdom, their popularity peaked in the 1970s and early 1980s. Thereafter they began to reach a wider American audience, appearing frequently on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the United States. In 1987, they were prominently featured as guests on the Emmy Award-winning ABC television special Julie Andrews: The Sound of Christmas.
The Tallis Scholars is a British professional early music vocal ensemble established in 1973. Normally consisting of two singers per part, with a core group of ten singers, they specialise in performing a cappella sacred vocal music. The founder and conductor is Peter Phillips. The group has released over 60 discs through its own label, Gimell Records. In 2013 they were elected to the Gramophone Hall of Fame. In 2023, to mark the group's 50th anniversary, Gramophone published a special edition of its magazine, dedicated to The Tallis Scholars.
Voces8, styled VOCES8, is an a cappella octet from England. They have appeared internationally and made recordings of classical music, jazz, pop, and their own arrangements. Recent recordings are for Decca Classics and under their own label, Voces8 Records. Educational efforts are run by the Voces8 Foundation.
2002 is a new-age group composed of Pamela, Randy, and Sarah Copus. 2002 has charted twelve albums on the Billboard New Age Charts. This Moment Now won the COVR award for Best New Age Album in 2004. 2002 was named amongst the top new-age artists in Billboard's 2003 "Year in Review" issue, a list that also featured Yanni, Mannheim Steamroller, Jim Brickman, George Winston, and Enya. They most recently won Best Vocal Album from the ZMR Zone Music Awards in 2015 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from One World Music Radio in 2021.
The Kansas City Chorale is a professional 27-voice chorus conducted by Charles Bruffy. They perform a four concert series in Kansas City, tour nationwide, and perform with their sister choir, the Phoenix Chorale, also conducted by Mr. Bruffy. During his tenure as conductor, the chorus has achieved international acclaim. Mr. Bruffy, renowned for his fresh interpretations of both traditional and new music, was noted by The New York Times as a disciple of the late Robert Shaw.
Sleep is a composition for a cappella choir by Eric Whitacre, with lyrics by Charles Anthony Silvestri. He composed it in 2000, setting a poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. When the lyrics were found still under copyright, Whitacre enlisted Silvestri to write new lyrics to the existing music.
Conspirare is a choral ensemble based in Austin, Texas. They were formed in 1991 by conductor and musical director Craig Hella Johnson as New Texas Festival but did not begin to regularly perform until 1999. They have released over 25 albums and one DVD and have been nominated for eight Grammy Awards. Their sixth Grammy-nominated album, The Sacred Spirit of Russia, was the winner of the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance. Conspirare has commissioned works from composers including David Lang, Tarik O'Regan, Jocelyn Hagen, Donald Grantham, Eric Whitacre, Nico Muhly, Mark Adamo, Robert Kyr, Jake Heggie, Eric Banks, and Jake Runestad.
Lux Aurumque is a choral composition in one movement by Eric Whitacre. It is a Christmas piece based on a Latin poem of the same name, which translates as "Light, warm and heavy as pure gold, and the angels sing softly to the new born babe". In 2000, Whitacre set a short Latin text for mixed choir a cappella. In 2005, he wrote an arrangement for wind ensemble. The choral version became known through Whitacre's project Virtual Choir in 2009. The piece is also available for men's choir. A performance takes about four minutes.
Gerard Cousins is a Welsh guitarist, composer and arranger.
Christopher Glynn is a British classical pianist and festival director. He is especially known for his work as an accompanist with many leading singers and for his work as Artistic Director of the Ryedale Festival.
Alexander Richard William L'Estrange is an English composer of choral music and music for television and an arranger for vocal ensembles. He is also a jazz musician, choral workshop leader, presenter of children's concerts and was a jazz examiner and trainer for ABRSM.
Melodia Women's Choir NYC is a women's choir in Manhattan dedicated to exploring, creating and performing classical and contemporary music composed for women's voices. An ensemble of 30 singers, Melodia performs concerts in New York City, and supports emerging women composers through commissions and performances.
A virtual choir, online choir or home choir is a choir whose members do not meet physically but who work together online from separate places. Some choirs just sing for the joy of the shared experience, while others record their parts alone and send their digital recordings, sometimes including video, to be collated into a choral performance. There may be a series of rehearsals which singers can watch online, and their performance recordings may be made while watching a video of the conductor, and in some cases listening to a backing track, to ensure unanimity of timing. The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 inspired a large growth in the number of virtual choirs, although the idea was not new.
Duruflé: Complete Choral Works is the seventh release by the choral group Houston Chamber Choir performing the unabridged choral works of composer Maurice Duruflé. Conducted by Artistic Director Robert Simpson and performed by organist Ken Cowan, the project is their first to be released under the Signum Classics label. The album won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance.
Grace Davidson is an English soprano from London who specialises in the performance of historically informed music from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. She has also recorded for prominent contemporary composers such as Max Richter, Eric Whitacre, Michael Price, and Paul Mealor, and has performed on over 140 soundtracks to date. Highlights include solos on The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, Over The Moon, Gunpowder Milkshake and The Last Duel.
Charles Anthony "Tony" Silvestri is an American poet and lyricist, and a lecturer in history at Washburn University.
The Lost Birds: An Extinction Elegy is the fourth studio album by the American composer Christopher Tin. The music was performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Voces8.
The Sacred Veil is a composition for a cappella choir, piano and cello by Eric Whitacre, with lyrics by Charles Anthony Silvestri. He composed it in 2018, also including lyrics of Silvestri's wife Julie, who died of cancer and to whom the composition is dedicated.
The Sleeping Child is a 2021 motet by Bob Chilcott for soprano and a vocal ensemble. He set a poem in English by Charles Bennet to music, commissioned by the ensemble Voces8. It was published by Oxford University Press.
