Theatre of Voices choral ensemble

Theater Of Voices is one of world's foremost vocal ensembles and annually tours throughout the United States and Europe. Founder and artistic director Paul Hillier created the group to be flexible in number, focusing on three main areas of specialty: medieval and renaissance polyphony, Anglo American folk psalmody (including the Shape Note tradition), and contemporary composers of the "new tonality" school.

The idea for the group was conceived as early as 1989 while Hillier was still artistic director of the Hilliard Ensemble, but looking for ways to expand into different styles of singing while performing the early music of his choice. Under the name Theatre of Voices, he began creating new projects ranging from Proensa, a recital of Troubadour songs to programs devoted to the music of John Cage and Arvo Pärt. Hillier began to form the American nucleus of the present ensemble after moving to the University of California, Davis as Professor of Music in 1990. The group debuted at the Berkeley Early Music Festival in June 1992 is now based in Bloomington, Indiana, where Hillier is director of the Early Music Institute at the Indiana University School of Music.

Theatre of Voices has performed in the Opera de la Bastille in Paris, Radio Frankfurt, the Schauspielhaus Berlin, Vredenburg in Utrecht, the Frick Museum and Alice Tully Hall in New York, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and on Minnesota Public Radio's nationally syndicated program "St. Paul Sunday". In recent years Theatre of Voices has performed extensively throughout the United States and Europe including collaborative concerts with Steve Reich & Musicians. Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices were the subject of a series of six radio shows produced by Washington DC's " Millenium of Music" and syndicated nationally. The BBC program "Behind the Masque" presented an in-depth interview and biography of Hillier that was broadcast in the fall 1996. Hillier's book Arvo P?rt was published in 1997 by Oxford University Press. Director Paul Hillier.

Stimmung

With the 1968 Paris première of his Stimmung, Karlheinz Stockhausen (b. 1928) exploded the very definition of vocal performance. This musical tour de force, made up of an unbroken sequence of 51 sonic models - entirely built on the overtones of B-flat and presented in every possible voice combination - experiments with new compositional techniques and deconstructs the mechanics of speech and song. Paul Hillier, a champion of early and contemporary vocal repertoire, leads Theatre of Voices in his newly created “Copenhagen version” of a milestone of 20th-century music that today remains as relevant as ever. Hillier’s life-long relationship with Stimmung began in the 1970s when he performed it as a member of Singcircle with the composer at the controls. The serene but highly charged aural landscape of the work has its roots in Stockhausen’s assimilation of global musical currents as he traveled the world in the 1950s and 1960s - from mystic experiences in Mexico to Tibetan overtone singing. Surprisingly, this is one of Stockhausen’s most accessible compositions: spiritual yet humorous, mystical yet worldly and erotic in its poetry. Following the performances Theatre of Voices gave in the UK, the Times of London called them “mesmerizing” and The Daily Telegraph described the event as “evoking a feeling of ritual and tranquility.” This SACD-only release is a demonstration-quality recording that is certain to wow the most exacting of audiophiles.

Arvo Pärt - A Tribute

In celebration of composer Arvo Pärt’s 70th birthday on September 11th, Harmonia Mundi offers this special selection of recordings, conducted by his long-time collaborator and biographer Paul Hillier. Of special note is the first release of Hillier’s reading of Dopo la vittoria. Previously released recordings are taken from Hillier’s two highly acclaimed recordings of the music of Arvo Pärt. His first CD, De Profundis, has remained a bestseller since its debut in March 1997. I Am The True Vine, his second Pärt disc, illustrated Hillier’s unique affinity for the deep spiritual mysteries of Pärt’s music, and his ability to illuminate them in ways no other performer can match. The collaborative relationship between Hillier and Estonian composer Pärt dates back to the early 1980s, when as director of the Hilliard Ensemble, he was among the first to present Pärt’s music to the West.

Arvo Pärt - I Am The True Vine

Bogorditse dyvo (Hail Mary)
I Am the True Vine
Kanon Pokajanen
The Woman with the Alabaster Boxt
Tribute to Caesar
Berliner Messe

Contemporary troubador Paul Hillier has been one of the key players behind introducing Arvo Pärt's music to Western audiences, first through recordings with the Hilliard Ensemble and later through his magnificently innovative group Theatre of Voices. I Am the True Vine continues the collaboration by bringing together some truly vintage Pärt compositions from the '90s. Although it exists on disc in a more elaborate version for choir and strings, the 1990 Berlin Mass was originally written for just four solo voices and organ. Pärt later revised the score, returning to that original sonority, which is the version offered here. The consummate preparation of the Theatre of Voices, in which every line is lovingly unfurled, the whole building into a memorable aural sculpture, only heightens a listener's admiration for Pärt's ability to make the seemingly simple profound. We also hear the composer in a more overtly joyful mood than usual in the short first selection, while the title track--a setting of a text from the Gospel of John and one of three world premiere recordings here--is a marvelously organic example of word painting (representing Pärt's choral virtuosity even when it comes to setting English text).

7868 CD $17.95

7009 CD $9.98

Arvo Pärt - De Profundis

De Profundis
Kyrie
Gloria
Credo
Sanctus
Agnus Dei
Ite Misse Est
Solfeggio
And One Of Those Pharisees
Cantate Domino
Summa
O Weisheit
O Adonai
O Spross
O Schlussel
O Morgenstern
O Konig
O Immanuel
The Beatitudes
Magnificat

Review pending

6136 CD $15.98

Theater of Voices

Discography

Stimmung

Arvo Pärt - A Tribute

Arvo Pärt - I Am The True Vine

7009 CD $9.98

Arvo Pärt - De Profundis

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