DAZZLING LIGHT
Alpha Classics 2025
On Dazzling Light Christopher Lowrey and his vocal ensemble Altera explore light in all its forms. There is a remarkable body of choral music that evokes light’s many facets: the light of morning and evening, sacred light, light as a symbol of Christ, light as the conqueror of darkness and even (thanks to the James Webb telescope) the light of distant galaxies. This programme includes works primarily from the 20th and 21st centuries, with music by John Rutter, Jonathan Dove, Matthew Martin, Toby Young, Charles Wood, Ko Matsushita, Sir William Harris, Eric Whitacre, Thomas Tallis, Michael Garrepy and David Hill. There is also an evening prayer by English composer Joanna Marsh, a work by South African composer Motshwane Pege, the winner of Altera’s third composition competition, and John Cameron’s arrangement of Edward Elgar’s Nimrod from the Enigma Variations; this work, entitled Lux aeterna, is perfectly suited to Altera’s strengths.
THE LAMB'S JOURNEY
Alpha Classics 2024
"Clean as a whistle and confident in exposed moments such as in Poulenc's Agnus Dei, and immaculately balanced in richly scored textures elsewhere, the singing is terrific throughout. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️"
-BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
The American countertenor Christopher Lowrey founded Ensemble Altera ‘to form the beating heart of professional choral music in the United States’. Now regarded as one of the finest and most enterprising choirs on the North American continent, Altera has devised this musical tour through sacred territories which focuses on epic narratives from various periods, from Renaissance music to the present day. The programme includes timeless works by Gibbons, Lotti, Scheidt and Bruckner, as well as twentieth-century compositions by Poulenc, Messiaen and others. Barber’s celebrated Adagio sits alongside the moving Salvator Mundi , taken from Herbert Howells’s Requiem . Not forgetting three world premiere recordings of works written or arranged for Altera by composers Joanna Marsh, Zuzanna Koziej, and Michael Garrepy, who has arranged Were you there?