Performer: Ora Singers
Conductor: Suzi Digby
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Release: 2017
Size: 1.43 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Rutter: Suzi’s Carol
02. Peacock: Venite, Gaudete!
03. Clements: Gabriel’s Message
04. Beamish: In the Stillness
05. Skempton: Adam lay y-bounden
06. Hewitt Jones: Lullay, my Liking
07. Burton: Balulalow
08. trad.: Coventry Carol (Arr. Richard Allain)
09. Lauridsen: O Magnum Mysterium
10. Treseder: Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day
11. Todd: My Lord has Come
12. Bassi: Quem pastores laudavere
13. Sametz: Gaudete!
14. Weir: My Guardian Angel
15. Park: Shepherds’ Cradle Song
16. Chilcott: The Shepherd’s Carol
17. Rathbone: The Oxen
18. McDowall: Now May We Singen
19. Whitacre: Lux Aurumque
20. Pärt: Bogoroditse Djevo
21. trad.: Les anges dans nos campagnes (Arr. Tobias Frank)
22. Holst: In the Bleak Midwinter (Arr. Ola Gjeilo)
23. Sixten: Mary’s Lullaby (Silent Night)
24. Wiseman: The Christmas Tree
Héhé, voilà une idée qu’elle est bonne [Hehe, here’s a good idea], as the much-missed Michel Colucci would say. Instead of piling on pounds eating tasteless chocolates, opening a little cardboard window on an Advent calendar decorated with sickly-sweet drawings, why not open every day from the start of Advent with the a little choral piece? This good idea originates with the excellent British choir ORA, directed by Suzi Digby: twenty-four a capella pieces, almost all of which come from the recent British repertoire, and of which two have been made for (and by) the ensemble. ORA is one of those brilliant choirs from the English speaking world, with 24 high-quality voices, whose aim is to revive, after a fashion, the Renaissance passion for contemporary choral music by the likes of Byrd or Tallis… Hence their modern programmes – contemporary, note, but very much removed from the production-line atonal avant-garde output of the 1970s and 1980s. They work with a list of great British choral composers like Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Holst, Parry, Stanford Berkeley, Finzi, or, more recent still, stars like Rutter or Tavener whose language sometimes approaches jazz or Gospel.