An impressive debut recording from Birmingham's chamber choir, The Elgar Scholars

The Elgar Scholars describe themselves as Birmingham’s newest pre-professional chamber choir, and is conducted by co-musical directors Jim Bate and Laura Bailie. Bate & Bailie are both graduates of The University of Birmingham’s choral conducting masters programme, and the singers are students and alumni from the university, the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and elsewhere. As you would expect, therefore, they produce a sophisticated sound, with precise tuning and clear diction a given. What is more interesting perhaps on their short debut recording is the variety of contemporary styles across just eight tracks. 

One piece gives a nod towards their name, in John Cameron’s arrangement of Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’, as ‘Lux Aeterna’, but otherwise all the other pieces are by living composers. Starting with the Elgar, they take this at a good pace, avoiding any self-indulgence that can creep in, and they  keep their powder dry until the big climax, when the ringing sopranos really burst out of the texture, before retreating to deliver a touchingly fragile ending. There are two works here by ex-King’s Singer and composer Bob Chilcott (b.1955). Firstly, there is Even Such is Time, a setting of a Walter Raleigh text, with a falling repeated pattern that here leads towards a rich, full homophonic sound from the choir, and a beautifully pure-toned soprano solo line from Alice Martin. The other Chilcott piece comes from his Song of Harvest. Gratitude is a prayerful hymn, with a warm blend from the singers here. Judith Weir (b.1954) is represented here by Drop Down, Ye Heavens, From Above, her setting of the Rorate Coeli text, often set to plainsong for Advent matins. Weir starts with a bare sound of just two lines, then adds lines to the texture, building to a thicker homophonic texture, with a particularly richly dense chord on the word Fear. There is an eery wedding anthem, And I Will Betroth You, from Michael Zev Gordon (b.1963), once again relatively homophonic in texture, but with closely clashing parts requiring precision of tuning and balance from the singers, and they sustain the long-held chords with impressive steadiness. The album’s title, Finding Your Home, comes from Millicent B James’ work, which was commissioned by the National Youth Choir. James was a member of their Young Composer Scheme in 2023, and this piece demonstrates a highly impressive command of a variety of choral techniques, moving from jazzy close harmony into a more playful rhythmically driven style, with improvisatory solo lines and finger-clicking creating a joyful and richly textured celebration, and the singers clearly had fun with this one. 

But the two highlights here for me include Laura Mvula’s (b.1986) own choral arrangement of her song Sing To The Moon, originally composed with Steven James Brown who sadly passed away in 2024 for Mvula’s debut studio album in 2013. Mvula also studied composition at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and this choral arrangement was performed by the BBC Singers at the Last Night of the Proms in 2019. The choruses have simpler, thicker harmony, with a glorious solo rising above from soprano Evelyn Byford, whilst the verses allow for more interesting textures from individual lines and falling figures from the sopranos. And my other highlight is Jonathan Dove’s (b.1959) In Beauty May I Walk. It was written as a present for Anthony Whitworth-Jones on leaving Glyndebourne Festival Opera, where Whitworth-Jones had been General Director and had commissioned various works by Dove, including his opera Flight. It uses anonymous Navajo text, translated by Jerome K Rothenberg, and Dove expertly combines chanting with repeating figures and layering of parts to create a haunting piece. Here The Elgar Scholars basses rise up slowly beneath the busier upper parts, their slow scale underpinning the build to the work’s climax, before falling away to a quiet, delicate conclusion. It is in these more complex works, the Dove, Mvula and James pieces in particular, that The Elgar Scholars demonstrate their assured command, and conductors Bailie and Bate have clearly worked hard with them to create a highly accomplished choir that I look forward to hearing more from.

Various. 2025. Finding Your Home. The Elgar Scholars, Jim Bate, Laura Bailie. Compact Disc & Download. Convivium Records CR110.

 

Twistmas - Resound Voices and the Rebelles deliver a wide-ranging feast of vocal delights

Resound Voices

Sam Barton (conductor)

Rebelles

Antonia Hyatt (conductor)

Gaynor Gallant (piano, oboe)

Francesca Urquhart (double bass)

Tom Hyatt (percussion)

7.30pm, Saturday 14 December 2024

St Luke's Church, Brighton

★★★★

It’s always great to see what interesting repertoire that ‘genre fluid’ Resound Voices and their partners in crime, the Rebelles will come up with. But this time, for Twistmas’, they excelled themselves, with a highly eclectic mix of works from all kinds of genres. With classical, folk, musical theatre and popular music on the menu, pretty much all bases were covered. Resound Voices, a lower voice ensemble, was founded in 2011 by Stefan Holmstrom, and is now conducted by Sam Barton, and the Rebelles, a women’s ensemble is conducted by Antonia Hyatt. And speaking of menu, their ‘theme’ for the evening was to structure their programme around a feast, with amuse-bouche and appetisers leading to a main course, dessert and a final digestif encore. 

Sam Barton & Resound Voices

So Resound Voices gave us the amuse-bouche course, with a mostly Nordic flavour. Söderberg’s arrangement of the traditional Swedish herding song, Limu Limu Lima began with a strong, smooth baritone line, and the harmonies once established were precisely tuned. American composer Rosephanye Powell’s Non Nobis, Domine contrasted well with its bouncing rhythms and crossing musical ideas, and here we heard the men’s full warm tutti sound for the first time, with a strong, bright final chord. Back to Sweden next, with Gustaf Nordqvist’s popular Christmas song, Jul, Jul, Strålande, Jul. This gave the guys the opportunity to show off one of their major strengths, their gloriously bright high first tenors, and the overall sound here was beautifully sweet, with faultless tuning. Then to the Disney film Frozen, but no, not that song – instead, the Sámi song, Vuelie (the South Sámi word for ‘yoik’, the chanting style of their traditional songs). Once again, the high tenors shone here, and conductor Sam Barton shaped a strong dynamic range here too. They ended their section with a tricky arrangement of Pure Imagination (from the original Willy Wonka film), not quite nailing every complex harmony here, but delivering the song’s sentiment with commitment.

Antonia Hyatt & the Rebelles

Then it was the turn of the Rebelles to give us the appetisers. They began with conductor Antonia Hyatt’s own arrangement of The Movie In My Mind, a darkly moving song from Miss Saigon. The women delivered this with passion, and immediately demonstrated their ability to tell a story, with a particularly strong solo part standing out. An arrangement of Jane Siberry’s The Valley followed, with a rich contralto sound on display, although a few of the middle harmonies were a little unclear here. Noël Nouvelet followed, with drum and double bass joining. The French text was clearly a bit of a challenge here, with more reliance on their copies than usual, but it was a nonetheless striking performance, upping the energy levels of the evening. A lively if slightly frenetic performance of Bach’s Suscepit Israel from the Magnificat followed, with oboe, piano and bass accompaniment. They finished their set with David Guetta’s When Love Takes Over, a great upbeat number, with the combined voices carrying well over the full band accompaniment here.

 

The evening’s first half finished with the two groups joining, firstly for a lovely arrangement of Gabriel’s Message, and it was great to hear their full combined choral harmonies for the first time. They then finished with a crazy Alleluia by Jake Runestad, with whole tone scales, constantly changing time signatures and wild energy, all held together expertly by Barton’s clear conducting.

 

Resound Voices & the Rebelles

The second half opened with a comedic turn from three of the men, and a fun and cheeky number, Santa’s My Boyfriend, the guys hamming it up beautifully. Nicholas Ryan Kelly’s dark Christmas number, Cold Moon followed, complete with quotes from the Carol of the Bells. Here it was perhaps most noticeable that the guys, positioned a little further back on the steps than the women, were muted a little by the church’s acoustic – a more forward position would have better supported their sound. Once again in Sam Barton’s very tricky arrangement of Have Yourself A Merry Little Xmas, it was again the first tenors that shone, holding things together as the very complex harmonies shifted beneath them. Another dark number followed, the very intricate and clever Time, by J L Cook, with the guys managing well the rhythms as words are dropped from the text on each repetition. They ended their ‘main course’ with Children Go Where I Send Thee, in a version popular with US choruses, including the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus, giving it particular significance for first tenor James, who introduced it. They gave us their most energetic performance of the evening so far here, and nailed the building up of the clapping rhythms. 

 

And onto dessert! The Rebelles began with a wonderfully sassy rendition of Gonna Wash That Man, with an especially strong solo line, and then contrasted it with The Lord is my Shepherd by Howard Goodall (yes, of The Vicar of Dibley fame). The solo here was bright and pure, with clear choral harmonies from the rest of the singers. Reger’s Mary’s Cradle Song had a warm full unison sound, with a suitably gentle lilt. Then they finished with more gospel, a confidently dramatic rendition of Music Down in My Soul, with powerful soprano and alto solos. 

 

The choirs then came together for Baba Yetu, a setting of the Lord’s Prayer in Swahili, actually composed by Christopher Tin for the video game, Civilization IV. Andreas from Resound Voices led with a commanding solo, and the combined choral voices supported with great energy. Then for their ‘digestif’ encore, Rutter’s Banquet Fugue. Not being a fan of Rutter generally, Rutter doing ‘humour’ is even less palatable for me, so not an ideal digestif! However the performance here was nevertheless polished and provided a joyful finale to an evening full of variety, complexity, and above all, fabulous singing from both ensembles.     

Impressive debut from the Phoenix Consort & Adam Whitmore in effective and evocative choral works by Alexander Campkin

I Saw Eternity is a new release on Convivium Records, in fact a debut release from choral ensemble Phoenix Consort, directed by Adam Whitmore. The group were founded during the pandemic, and comprises current or former students at Durham University. In their short time together, they have already won a couple of competition prizes and toured in northern Spain, and for their debut disc, they have recorded a collection of choral works by Alexander Campkin (b.1984). The music charts a personal journey from darkness to light for the composer, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, aged just 17. The diagnosis brought a possible career as a viola player to an end, and led Campkin to focus on composition. He has composed numerous choral, orchestral and chamber works, and has been the composer in residence with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra ensemble, BSO Resound. Some of the choral works here have been previously recorded, but a number are premiere recordings. 

 

As is somewhat inevitable with a whole album of similar scale choral works by one composer, there is a certain homogeneity of style that emerges throughout the collection. Settings of the various Christian or spiritually inspired texts are predominantly relatively homophonic, and tempi are on the slower side on the whole. There is frequent use of choral parts diverging from a single note, building up a cluster, before returning to the core single note. And ringing, often challengingly extended, soprano lines at the top of the texture are common. However, this might imply a complete lack of variety, and this would be unfair. Calm me, O Lord, for example, departs from the simple homophonic opening with independent voices repeating fragments of text over the lower voices moving at a slower pace. This piece contains some of the most intense of Campkin’s settings, along with Dazzling Darkness, a setting of Henry Vaughan’s (1621-1695) The Night. Here, there is a little more energy in the tempo, with quicker rising scales and even whistling creating more varied textures. But those clusters built up over scales do abound – in Bright Apollo they ring out clear and appropriately bright, and similarly in Bright Shadows (after another Vaughan text), appearing once again in I flying, although here combined with an effective twisting triplet figure. There are three pieces with I Saw Eternity in the title, all again setting texts by Vaughan. That technique of moving away from a single note to a cluster and back is used as a kind of motif here on the word eternity, although the harmonies in I saw Eternity like a shadow are more adventurous. There is one arrangement here too, Campkin's choral arrangement of Ivor Gurney's (1890-1937) Sleep, with Campkin highly effectively replicating the lilting piano accompaniment in choral textures, Gurney's darker harmonic language also shining through. The final works on the disc provide some elements of departure from the mould, with more energy and pace, and an impressive build to the final chord in Tommy’s Carol, and a lively rhythmic energy in Awake, Awake!, an effective setting of The Bellman’s song, a traditional hunting song, also known as The Moon shines bright. There are certainly some strong choral works here that would benefit exploration by choral groups capable of meeting their challenges, and I am also prompted to explore more of Campkin’s compositions in other genres. 

 

The Phoenix Consort demonstrate strong command throughout, embracing the soundworld and managing the tuning of those dense clusters well. The sopranos do ring out bright at the top, although very occasionally the extended nature of the high lines leads to a slightly brittle sound which would benefit from a little more bloom in the recording. The extended techniques of whistling and humming are confidently executed in Dazzling Darkness, as is the improvisatory individual repetition in Calm me, O Lord. 

Campkin, A. I Saw Eternity: Choral Works by Alexander Campkin. Phoenix Consort, Adam Whitmore. Compact Disc & Download. Convivium Records CR100.

Lumen de Lumine - New choral music from the Lumen Chamber Choir

Recently I spoke to Benjamin Thiele-Long, Director of the London-based Lumen Chamber Choir, about their innovative project to record a whole disc of new sacred and spiritual choral music.  Thiele-Long spoke about the inspiration that came to him on a visit to Iceland, seeing the Northern Lights for the first time.  He compared his emotional reaction to when he first heard Howell's Collegium Regale, and this led him to think about how to create new opportunities for choral music to move and excite audiences.  In Iceland, he experienced a genuine enthusiasm for new music, and this was something he wanted to encourage back home. 

The idea for a project with the Lumen Chamber Choir was thus formed.  This was in essence to create a platform that composers of choral music wouldn't otherwise have, and to expand the repertoire of new music available to choirs of all abilities.  They decided to launch a crowdfunding initiative, which proved successful, and approached various record labels to support the project.  Thiele-Long says that Convivium Records were immediately supportive of the project, and instrumental in bringing the recording to fruition.

The composers were found through recommendation, friends and some already associated with the choir as singers or former singers, as well as a successful social media campaign - Thiele-Long's 'day job' PR background coming in handy here.  They ended up with a good number of composers interested, and the selection process that followed, including the aim for a balance of styles, and demographic backgrounds, helped them reduce the chosen number of composers down to the final line-up.  The end result is a collection of music from 12 different composers, with a very broad range of styles.  

You will be able to read my review of the final disc here soon, but for now, do have a look at the above videos in which Thiele-Long talks more about this exciting project.  There are also more videos giving background on the composers and their works - I've included a couple of these below.

You can get hold of the disc here.

Various, 2018. Lumen de Lumine. Lumen Chamber Choir, Benjamin Thiele-Long. Compact Disc. Convivium Records CR046.