Phoenix Bach Choir

The Grammy Award-winning Phoenix Chorale is regarded as one of the finest professional choral ensembles in America and is equally dedicated to the creation and performance of new music, which it intermingles with more traditional concert literature. Audiences around the world have been treated to the sounds of the Chorale through live performances across the United States and in Canada, and in live broadcasts and recordings on radio stations across the globe. In 2004, the Phoenix Chorale became the first North American choir to release an album on Chandos Records, one of the largest independent classical record labels in the world. The Phoenix Chorale's latest solo recording, Spotless Rose, was released in September 2008, and received a Grammy Award nomination for "Best Classical Album," and won a Grammy for "Best Small Ensemble Performance." Rheinberger: Sacred Choral Works is the Phoenix Chorale's third joint-recording in a series of albums on the Chandos Record label with the Kansas City Chorale and received two Grammy Award nominations including "Best Choral Performance" and "Best Surround Sound."

Two other joint-recordings have been released on Chandos Records, the first in the series is Eternal Rest (2005) followed by Grechaninov: Passion Week which received Grammy Award nominations in 2007 including "Best Classical Album," "Best Choral Performance," "Best Surround Sound Album," and won a Grammy Award for "Best Engineered Album, Classical." In its 51-year history, the Phoenix Chorale's conductors have included Millicent Wesley (the Chorale's first conductor from 1958), Wallace Hornibrook, Dan Durand, Vance George, Jon Washburn, and Charles Bruffy. The Phoenix Chorale, ensemble-in-residence at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Phoenix, is sponsored in part through grants and funding from Cathedral Arts, Arizona Commission on the Arts, the City of Phoenixís Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Quail Distributing.

Discography

Spotless Rose: Hymns to the Virgin Mary

Splendid Jewel - Stephen Paulus A Hymn to the Virgin - Benjamin Britten Ave, Regina - Cecilia McDowall Ave, Maria - Cecilia McDowall s Regina Caeli - Cecilia McDowall A Spotless Rose - Herbert Howells Ave, Maris Stella - Javier Busto Ave, Maria - Javier Busto Fair in Face - Healey Willan I Beheld Her, Beautiful as a Dove - Healey Willan Rise up, My Love, My Fair One - Healey Willan De Profundis - Jean Belmont Ford Asperges me, Domine/Credo - Jean Belmont Ford Ave, Dulcissima Maria - Jean Belmont Ford Magnificat anima mea - Jean Belmont Ford

'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 protégé 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.

Listen to "A Spotless Rose" in Real Audio

8948 SACD $19.95

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Rheinberger

Oster-Hymne, Op. 134 for Eight Voices (Double Choir) for Church and Concert Vier sechsstimmige Motetten, Op. 133 Mass, Op. 109 in E flat major for Double Choir Drei geistliche Gesange, Op. 69 for Mixed Choir

'The massed forces of the Phoenix Bach Choir and Kansas City Chorale 'make a formidable choral machine' (BBC Music Magazine) and the choirs under the baton of Charles Bruffy here present a collection of unaccompanied sacred choral works by Josef Rheinberger. The disc includes the only available recordings of his Oster-Hymne for double chorus and Four Six-part Motets, op.133. The Oster-Hymne is a setting of two ancient Easter texts, particularly the famous sequence Victimae paschali laudes. During his lifetime, Rheinberger was lauded as a talented performer, prolific composer and masterful teacher. He observed that his primary consideration in music 'is that it shall be beautiful; music that does not sound beautiful has no attraction for me'.

8741 SACD $23.95

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Eternal Rest

Cabticum Calamitatus Maritimae There Will Be Rest (Frank Ticheli) IIn Pace (Rene Clausen) Messe Pour Double Choeur

Finnish composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi (b. 1963) writes some of today's more innovative choral music. It's not only creatively interesting but it also maintains the qualities of tonal/harmonic accessibility and text-centered immediacy that allows it to register with a broad spectrum of listeners. His collections of Shakespeare Songs, More Shakespeare Songs, and No More Shakespeare Songs show a composer at once in love with his subject and fully in tune with his audience - and one clearly in possession of a sense of humor! On this recording we hear a profoundly serious work, in memory of the victims of a terrible Baltic Sea tragedy in September, 1994, in which the luxury ferry Estonia sank in a storm, killing 852 passengers. Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae incorporates elements of Psalm 107 ("They that go down to the sea in ships...") with news accounts of the disaster (taken from a Latin-language Finnish radio broadcast), employing dramatic, rich-textured choral utterances (including the whispered prayers of the opening and closing bars) along with chant-inspired passages and an occasional folk-song-like melody, all of which culminates in an extended passage of beautiful and often surprising harmonies, ideally defining the text at the end of the Psalm: "He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still..." This is a moving and memorable work, one that these choirs perform with care and confidence under Charles Bruffy's artful direction. Frank Martin's Mass for double choir has been recorded many times--and mostly very well--and this is another fine rendition of a work that seems to register its "classic" credentials more impressively every time you hear it. René Clausen's In pace, cut from the same vibrant-colored harmonic cloth as the Ticheli, is another work that deserves repertoire status, and again, Bruffy's singers perfectly capture its nuances of texture and dynamics and give full measure to the big sonorities. The complementary acoustics of Camelback Bible Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona, expertly recorded for this hybrid SACD, complete a program that should have strong appeal to all choral music fans.

8497 SACD $23.95

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Shakespeare In Song

Shakespeare Songs (Matthew Harris) The Tempest (Frank Martin) When He Shall Die (Steven Sametz) Four Shakespeae Songs (Jaakko Mantyjarvi) Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Nils lindberg) Sonnet No. LXIV (Dominick Argento) O mistress mine! (Alan Murray) Three Shakespeare Songs (Ralph Vaughan Williams)

Founded in 1958 as the Bach and Madrigal Society, the Choir originally focused on Renaissance and baroque period music, but today is equally dedicated to the creation and performance of new music. They are conducted by Charles Bruffy, one of the most highly respected choral conductors in the US. The CD features 23 songs, beginning with 7 cuts from Matthew Harris' "Shakespeare Songs," and 5 "Songs of Ariel from Shakespeare's 'The Tempest.' Steven Sametz' lovely "When He Shall Die," Jaakko Mantyjarvi's "Four Shakespeare Songs," Nils Lindberg's minor-key "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day," Dominick Argento's "Sonnet No. LXIV," Alan Murray's "O mistress mine," and the CD finishes strong with Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Three Shakespeare Songs." The Choir beautifully takes us into the drama, moodiness, pathos, romance and celebration of these songs, most of which are new to our ears. A worthy project, and a winning CD for Bruffy and his talented Phoenix Bach Choir! Extensive, colorful liner notes.

A Southwest Christmas

Milagros de Navidad - Ed Henderson Los Reyes de Oriente Angels we have heard on high A la nanita nana (Lullaby) Allà en el portal (Away in a manger) Noche de paz (Silent night) Fum fum fum Noel Sing We - Jon Washburn Magnificat secundi toni - Hernando Franco Lo, how a rose e're blooming - arr. Jon Washburn The Star - Jon Washburn I wonder as I wander How brightly shines the morning star Rise up, shepherd, an’ follow Weihnachtslieder - Johann Sebastian Bach

The Phoenix Bach Choir four years ago premiered Milagros de Navidad, a Christmas cycle for choir as a way of marking the holiday season in a Southwestern accent. In this recording, the choir has made Milagros the lead item in a superbly produced and packaged yuletide CD from an emerging Arizona label, Soundset. Jon Washburn conducts the ensemble of Frank Koonce, guitar; Mark Sunkett, percussion; and the choir with select soloists. In this sonically clean and vibrant recording, Milagros is a compendium of yuletide songs lovingly sung in Spanish and English, with running commentary from guitarist Koonce. Robert Tree Cody, on Native American Flute (the instrument of choice this season, it seems), is also heard here, in Washburn's own Noel Sing We, a kind of American Indian-haunted holiday landscape.

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