The Glasgow Phoenix Choir was founded in 1951 and since then has been at the forefront of popular choral music in Scotland and Beyond. 'Caledonian Christmas' is the choir's second recording on the Scotdisc label and follows on from the highly successful 'Highland Cathedral'. The content is a mixture of seasonal Music old and new, Scottish favorites and other items in a diverse collection of songs which should evoke romantic, and wistful thoughts of Scotland at Christmas wherever you are.

This, the Choir's 32nd recording is completely unique being recorded 'live' in lona Abbey by special permission of Historic Scotland and the lona Community in May 2004. The serene and sacred atmosphere of this most holy of settings in Scotland, a place of pilgrimage visited by people from throughout the world, inspired both singers and audience alike. Now for the first time ever there is available a live recording of religious and secular music, both classical and modern, including songs especially associated with Iona and its neighbouring island of Mull. Let the music transport you back to lona - our performance started with Scottish repertoire and then developed into one of those profound occasions when the sun shone, the birds sang and the sound of heavenly voices filled this remote and magnificent setting. Surely this recording is a must have souvenir of Iona & Mull.

'Choral singing just doesn't get much better than this. When it comes to purity of tone, daunting precision and superfine blend, Charles Bruffy's remarkable Phoenix Chorale have it all - and then some!' - Gramophone Magazine. Praise indeed for this multiple Grammy nominated recording. Unified by its Marian idea, the program mixed classic British and contemporary American pieces in a novel way, and it provides an excellent window for the world on the vigorous tradition of a cappella choral music that has evolved independently of academic trends and their strictures. All the music here exploits, to a greater or lesser degree, the acoustic effects possible with an a cappella chorus in a large space, and Chandos, turning its engineers loose in an Arizona desert megachurch called the Camelback Bible Church, achieves spectacular results. The standout is perhaps the final four-movement Electa, by Kansas City composer Jean Belmont Ford, with its intense passages of overlap between a solo soprano tone and the choir and its haunting use of solo timpani and bass drum, the only instruments heard anywhere on the disc. Both the Ford work and the Two Marian Pieces by Spanish-born Javier Busto are world premieres, and both are likely to be eagerly adopted by other choirs. The singers shine equally in the subtle dissonances of the first of Busto's pieces and in the tricky artlessness of Benjamin Britten's A Hymn to the Virgin. This is a triumph of engineering, of choral singing, and of conducting on the part of Charles Bruffy, a protege of fabled American choral conductor Robert Shaw, who, like his mentor, has achieved impressive, sensuously irresistible results in a city without a deeply ingrained tradition of classical singing. Booket notes are in English, French, and German.

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