Voces8 presents 'A Choral Christmas'

Voces8, with the Voces8 Foundation Choir and Orchestra – A Choral Christmas (Decca)

“It was a special moment for all of us to celebrate what it was to be able to be together. And for me, that's what Christmas is about,” says Barnaby Smith, the co-founder, artistic director and countertenor of the British vocal ensemble Voces8. “I hope there's something that represents Christmas for everyone on the album, because some people can be lonely and some people can be joyful. But really, we all experience Christmas in our own way, and we've tried to represent that through this album.”

A Choral Christmas is the ensemble’s latest release. It was recorded in 2021 for the widely acclaimed Live From London, an online series that became one of the brightest musical moments of the pandemic lockdown. Smith says this recording was never intended to be a CD.

“I have to be honest: Originally, when we came up with the concept, I thought this would be one camera and a couple of microphones. We’d point the camera, sing some concerts and there'd be a few people who'd enjoy it. We put the initial Live From London season online and instead of selling tens or hundreds of tickets, we sold multiples of thousands. So the whole thing got quite big quite quickly, and the CD that we're here to talk about today is part of that project.”

Voces8 features eight singers in the ensemble. However, this recording features a full chorus and orchestra. Who are these additional members, and how did this large ensemble, which you’ve named the Voces8 Foundation Choir, come together?

“In this instance, we have the Voces8 Scholars who are eight young professional singers who we offer an annual program to for continued professional development. As part of that annual course they will come and do some performing with us. So this seemed like an ideal opportunity. Then we have a second vocal group under the foundation banner called Apollo5. And we also welcomed back some former members of the group and some of our friends. I think the choir was about 28 strong in the end. But there's also tracks in the album which are a lot more intimate and only feature the eight voices of Voces8. So you kind of get the best of both worlds.

Featured at the heart of the album is the Magnificat, by Taylor Scott Davis. How did that piece come to be?

“For the centerpiece for this project, I asked a great friend, American composer Taylor Scott Davis, if he might create a new suite of carols. They are incredibly diverse in terms of their structures, in terms of their sound worlds. They're also incredibly new, vibrant and different and unique. We brought it together in a very short space of time. I got the scores only three days before we did this concert.”

Could you talk about the carols featured in this album and what we can listen for that may help us to hear them anew?

“Take ‘Joy to the World,’ for example, which is the opening track on the album. The thing I would listen for here is the fanfares. For me, there's something about Christmas in the U.K. A composer we associate very much with Christmas is John Rutter, and he's very well known for writing a good fanfare. And Davis has sort of combined his love of Rutter with his love of music for cinema. So you kind of get Rutter crossed with John Williams and these fanfares, they are just startlingly brilliant.

“And then by complete contrast, you've got his setting of 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.' Davis has taken a very different view of it, and I think he benefits massively from the fact that he has a career in music for ministry. He has a deep understanding of the sort of theological basis of all this music. And so he sets 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel' with a sense of trepidation.”

The album also features another piece that was written especially for Voces8, British composer Bob Chilcott’s ‘The Sleeping Child.’

“It's a good day when you get an email from Bob Chilcott that just says, ‘Hey, Barney, I just wrote this for you guys.’ People may have come across Chilcott because he used to be in a famous vocal group called the King’s Singers.”

Resources

Voces8 Foundation Choir and Orchestra – A Choral Christmas (Amazon)

Voces8 Foundation Choir and Orchestra – A Choral Christmas (Decca)

Voces8 Foundation Choir and Orchestra – A Choral Christmas (official site)

Voces8 Foundation (official site)

Voces8 (official site)