Contrapunctus

The small Uk choir Contrapunctus, featuring between nine and 12 members, offers a rare mixture of music and scholarship, crafting adventurous programming which includes rarely performed music and situates it convincingly in its cultural context. There’s a solid research-oriented element of Contrapunctus’ work, provided impetus from the educational background of movie director Owen Rees, nonetheless it can be balanced by split vocal work through the group’s mixed-gender adult regular membership, and Contrapunctus could be paid attention to profitably by general viewers. Contrapunctus was founded this year 2010 and quickly obtained attention with event appearances not merely in England, however in the reduced Countries and in Iberia, both regions of specialty area in its repertoire. Those resulted in a place for the choral-heavy roster from the Signum label also to the discharge of Contrapunctus’ 1st recording, Libera nos: The Cry from the Oppressed, in 2013. The music for the album had not been particularly obscure, however the group’s method of presenting it had been completely novel. Using text messages linked to biblical narratives of oppression, Rees explored the resonances of sacred text messages in secular circumstances: particularly Protestant suppression of Catholicism in Britain and Spanish guideline over Portugal at a comparable time. At the guts of this program was William Byrd, no uncommon choice for a little United kingdom vocal ensemble, but hardly ever offers he been encircled with music, not absolutely all of it British, that casts a lot light on what he was about. Contrapunctus continued to record two albums of music through the Baldwin Partbooks, imperfect manuscripts (the tenor parts are lacking) copied out in Oxford in 1575. A explanation less inclined to propel an organization towards the best-seller graphs may be hard to assume, the albums possess brought the sweep of early British Renaissance music with their many listeners. The initial album, Amid Life, handled on designs of mortality; released in 2015, it had been honored with many newspaper and newspaper features, and shortlisted for the Gramophone Early Music Award. The next Baldwin Partbooks discharge, Virgin and Kid, featured Marian parts and was released in 2017. Contrapunctus retains the powerful placement of vocal group in home at the School of Oxford.