The great choral arranging team of Robert Shaw and Alice Parker has given us some great music through the years. They have long been involved with the sacred hymns and spirituals of America, from the southern shape-note hymns to the African American spiritual. Amazing Grace is a compilation of these sacred songs. Selections include, 'Wondrous Love,' 'Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal' and 'Sometimes I Feel Like a Moanin' Dove.' Originally heard on previous recordings by the Robert Shaw Chorale, these up dated versions by the Festival Singers are just as wonderful and uplifting.

Vespers is a musical setting for a night-long service celebrated in Russian monasteries and Russian orthodox churches. Written at the height of Rachmaninoff's compositional powers, the Vespers setting is considered to be the finest of his sacred works. This lush and beautiful composition for unaccompanied voices, in an eloquent performance by Robert Shaw and his talented festival chorus, is captured dramatically by Telarc in the spacious acoustic of the Church of St. Pierre, Gramat, France. This recording won a Grammy award in 1990.

This CD is a newly recorded collection of the most accessible, spiritually enlightening, and uplifting music of our time -- brilliantly interpreted by Robert Shaw and the Robert Shaw Festival Singers. It features Barber's Agnus Dei, a vocal arrangement by the composer of the hauntingly beautiful Adagio For Strings. 

The great contribution of Robert Shaw to choral music has brought the listener to expect that nearly any recording or live performance under Shaw's direction will be thoroughly stunning, refreshing and performed with remarkable musical insight. On Appear and Inspire, Robert Shaw and the Robert Shaw Festival Singers give exactly this kind of performance of Argento's 'I Hate and I Love', Debussy's 'Trois Chansons', Poulenc's 'Un Soir de Neige', Badings 'Trois Chansons Bretonnes', Britten's 'Hymn to St. Cecilia' and Ravel's 'Trois Chansons.'

The final years of Robert Shaw's life saw a return to his devotion to unaccompanied vocal music. Many will remember the Robert Shaw Chorale which was so popular in the 1950s and into the '60s. For two decades ending with his official retirement in 1989, Robert Shaw was the conductor and music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. During that period most of his choral work was for orchestra and chorus. Yet even before his retirement he had established the Robert Shaw Choral Institute which devoted it's efforts to furthering choral arts through conductor training, workshops and performances. Through the establishment of its summer festivals beginning in 1989, participants who were selected by audition came to the Quercy district of south-central France for two weeks of instruction and intensive rehearsal, culminating in a week of performances in the wonderful medieval churches of the region. Many of the recordings on this release were obtained by Telarc during the momentary summer existence of the Robert Shaw Festival Singers. In the winters Robert Shaw created the Chamber Singers to further the practice of choral music. From both these groups has been assembled a group of recordings which reflect the deeply spiritual nature of the founder. Several of them have never been released before. You will find classical works by Tallis, Poulenc, Rachmaninoff, Schubert, and others in addition to several gospels sung by some of the most beautiful voices of the time. This is glorious full choral splendor!

Led by master conductor and composer Robert Shaw, the RS Festival Singers perform 40 of Brahm's songs, lightly piano-accompanied and under three headings: 'Lebeslieder-Walzer, Op. 52, Neue Liebeslieder-Walzer, Op. 65, and Sieben Abendlieder. The large, extensive liner notes have all the lyrics. We particularly liked 'Liebeslieder-Walzer' cuts 1, 5, 6, 11, and 14, 'Neue Liebeslieder-Walzer Op. 65, cuts19, 21, 23, 26, 30 and 31, and 'Sieben Abendlieder' cuts 34, 37, 38 and 40. As with all Robert Shaw CDs, this one is elegantly arranged, beautifully sung and perfectly directed-great material, wonderfully performed!

One of the members of Les Six, a group of avante garde French composers, Francis Poulenc was one of the twentieth century's most notable composers of sacred choral music. Much of this dynamic music is gentle with a mystic sense of simplicity. There are often passages with a rocking alternation of chords with false harmonic relations. Selections from this wonderful recording by then Robert Shaw Festival Singers include the Mass in G major, Four Short Prayers of Saint Francis as well as motets for Christmas and Penitence. The music of Poulenc is must for any collection.

Since his death in 1999, Robert Shaw continues to be revered by American choral directors and music lovers, and his recorded interpretations are regarded as the gold standard among all those available. His numerous Grammy Awards attest to the regard in which he was held by his fellow musicians. This collection of seventeen choral selections are in recognition of Shaw's stellar body of work and were recorded during his last decade. These tracks are considered the best of the best, exquisite examples of the deep spiritual rapport Shaw achieved with unaccompanied choruses. One piece, the Verdi 'Ave Maria,' is performed by his 200-voice Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus in one of their rare opportunities to engage in a cappella singing. The remaining sixteen tracks were recorded by the smaller ensembles he formed in his final years-the Robert Shaw Festival Singers, who performed and recorded at his summer choral festivals in the south of France, and the Robert Shaw Chamber Singers, which brought together the best of his Atlanta voices for concerts and recordings during the winter months.

Listen to Same Train in RealAudio.

This recording presents a poignant compilations disc of songs, laments, chants, and single movements from large sacred works-all conducted by the late Robert Shaw-that evoke peace, reflection and remembrance. All of the thirteen tracks in this beautiful collection are taken from a wide variety of previously released recordings made for Telarc by the late Robert Shaw, the Dean of American choral conductors. The featured compositions include single movements from large works for chorus and orchestra (such as the Requiems of Mozart, Faure, and Durufle) as well as works for unaccompanied voices (such as the 'Ave Maria' from Quattro Pezzi Sacri by Verdi.) The recording opens with the serene sounds of Gregorian chant: six verses of the Stabat Mater dolorosa, followed by the 'Fac ut ardeat' movement from the Stabat Mater by Poulenc. Secular works featured on Elegy include Beethoven's Elegiac Song; the Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny) by Brahms; a movement from Hindemith's poignant When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd; and the 'Bois muertri' from Poulenc's Un soir de neige (Night of Snow). The recording closes, fittingly, with Schoenberg's eloquent a cappella choral work, Friede auf Erden (Peace on Earth).