Voces Sacrae

Voces Sacrae is one of the most exciting and versatile professional chamber choirs in Britain today. Having had already established an excellent reputation and receives superb reviews for every performance. The ensemble has been working in the fields of both contemporary (mainly a capella) and Renaissance choral music and has been performing and recording in association with Oxford University Press, promoting their new choral repertoire. The choir is very keen to bring the work of new composers to people's attention, recently recorded works by Magnus Williamson and Anthony Pitts. Voces Sacrae has also made the premier recording of Michael Finnissy's Seven Sacred Motets. This was followed by a disc of music by contemporary British composers which includes the first recording of Michael Berkeley's Eight Motets as well as works by Gabriel Jackson, Bob Chilcott and Magnus Williamson.

The choir has broadcast on the BBC and has given highly acclaimed concerts in venues nationwide. In 1998 Voces Sacrae toured South East Australia in association with OUP, giving concerts and leading workshops. Whilst there, it performed live on "The Music Show", the ABC's national music programme, and subsequent concerts were filmed for television and recorded for radio broadcast. Voces sacrae also gave the world premier performance of Michael Finnissy's Seven Sacred Motets in Sydney. Judy Martin was organ scholar of Selwyn College Cambridge from 1986 to 1989 where she studied conducting under Dr Andrew V. Jones. On graduating, she worked as an organist and conductor with posts at Exeter and The Queen's Colleges in Oxford, and as the conductor of The Arcadian Singers. In 1991 she spent six months in Sydney, as part of the Music Department at Christchurch St. Laurence, conducting and playing the organ. In 1995, after two years of teaching, she was appointed Head of Music at The Abbey School, a prestigious independent girls' school in Reading.

She has recently relinquished this post in order to pursue a career as a conductor and teacher. Judy was also instrumental in the establishment of a new eight-voice choir at the church of St Mary Magdalen in Oxford, a choir that is rapidly gaining a superb reputation, both in Oxford, and further afield. Judy is actively involved with Royal School of Church Music choirs and courses. She has recently been appointed Assistant Director of the Southern Cathedral Singers (girls and adults) and she directed the course for trebles at Magdalen College in Oxford at Easter 1999. She is also a tutor of RSCM Millennium Youth Choir, which performed in the Millennium Dome on New Year's Eve 1999.

Discography

Rubbra

Five Motets
Eternitie
Vain wits and eyes
A Hymn to God the Father
The Search
A Song
Four Carols
Mary Mother, Op. 90
Entrez y tous, Op. 93
Star of the Mystic East, Op. 81
The Holy Dawn, Op. 135
Missa a3, Op. 98
Kyrie
Gloria
Sanctus
Benedictus
Agnus Dei
Lauda Sion, Op. 110 (1960)
The Beatitudes, Op. 109
Five Madrigals, Op. 51

When to her lute Corinna sings
I care not for these ladies
Beauty is but a painted hell
It fell on a summer's day
Though you are young
Two Madrigals, Op. 52
Leave prolonging thy distress
So sweet is thy discourse
Mass in Honour of St Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)(1981)
Kyrie
Gloria
Sanctus
Benedictus
Agnus Dei

A beautiful disc of (mostly) World Premiere recordings, this first-ever CD to be devoted solely to the choral music of Edmund Rubbra. The earliest are the Five Motets of 1934, settings of 16th century metaphysical poems. It was madrigalist Thomas Campion whose poems provided the basis for two delightful sets of Madrigals, and charming too are the group of four simple Carols. It is for his liturgical music that Rubbra is perhaps best known today, and the four substantial works included here demonstrate why. There is his largest a cappella piece, Lauda Sion, a magnificent Aquinas setting, plus his second setting of The Beatitudes. Two settings of the mass are featured, his third, written in medieval style, and his fifth. This is the focal point of the whole collection, the Mass in Honour of St Teresa of Avila of 1981 which was Rubbra's last major choral work, and summarises the composer's mature harmonic language.
6551 CD $15.98


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