FEMININE VOICES AT CHRISTMAS
Alpha Classics 2025
Feminine Voices celebrates the female voice and the Christmas season, with a kaleidoscopic selection made up of the Magnificat, Ave Maria and carols, each of which is more wonderful than the last. Eight female composers feature in the programme that Christopher Lowrey and the singers of the Altera ensemble have devised, with works by Hildegard von Bingen, Imogen Holst, Germaine Tailleferre, Cecilia McDowall, Joanna Marsh, Barbara Strozzi, Elizabeth Poston, and a world premiere by Kerensa Briggs. Male composers are also included, with works by John Rutter, who has written many Christmas carols, and Benjamin Britten's famous Ceremony of Carols, a work now generally performed by boys' choirs but which was originally written for the women of the Fleet Street Choir. The version recorded here is Britten's original: "seven Christmas carols for women's voices and harp! Very sweet and full of charm". Altera and the harpist Li Shan Tan perform this magical and spellbinding music with delight.
2025 CHRISTMAS CHOICE
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
"The exquisitely pure-toned performance of Hildegard von Bingen’s O viridissima, Virga at the outset makes clear that this will be a special recital. The choir in question is the Rhode Island-based Ensemble Altera...whose programme aims to embrace ‘the many enthralling possibilities of the feminine voice’...It’s a luminous interpretation, with wonderfully precise ensemble and a buoyant sense of rhythm...Works by eight female composers are featured, including a crystalline account of Elizabeth Poston’s Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, Joanna Marsh’s ringing Magnificat and Barbara Strozzi’s meltingly lyrical O Maria quam pulchra es. Christopher Lowrey elicits expressively nuanced singing of the highest quality throughout, and the sound is excellent. ★★★★★"
DAZZLING LIGHT
Alpha Classics 2025
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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.
"Ensemble Altera and Christopher Lowrey offer a feast of treasures in their sacred anthology ‘Dazzling Light’. From astringent Rutter to sizzling Dove, and opulent Howells to the timeless quality of David Hill’s introit Dominus illuminatio, these performances continue to provide great satisfaction. Rhode Island’s finest deserve every encouragement."
- GRAMOPHONE
Named one of 2025 Classical discs of the year.
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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?
"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