One of the pleasures of directing a chamber choir is the freedom to range across six centuries of vocal music in a single programme. A motet by Victoria can sit beside a piece by a living composer; a Renaissance dance song can find an unexpected echo in a jazz arrangement. The art lies not in novelty for its own sake, but in finding genuine connections — of text, of harmony, of expressive intent — that allow disparate works to illuminate one another.
A broad repertoire
The Alma Consort’s repertoire spans from the polyphonic masters of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries — Josquin, Byrd, Palestrina, Victoria — through the Baroque and Romantic periods, to contemporary commissions and popular music. This breadth is not a matter of eclecticism; it reflects a belief that a well-trained vocal ensemble should be able to move between styles with the same assurance and sensitivity.
Building a programme
When planning a concert, we begin with the texts. Choral music is, at its heart, the setting of words, and the meaning of those words — sacred or secular, devotional or dramatic — provides the thread that holds a programme together. A sequence of pieces about light and darkness, for example, might move from Tallis through Whitacre to a folk song arrangement, each work casting new light on the theme.
Commissions and new music
We are committed to performing and commissioning new work. The choral tradition is a living one, and the repertoire of the future is being written now. Working closely with composers, we aim to bring the same care and attention to a first performance as we would to a work that has been sung for five hundred years.
Our events page lists upcoming concerts where you can hear this approach in practice.