A chamber choir of “seamless ensemble perfection” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer), Ensemble Altera is led by internationally celebrated countertenor Christopher Lowrey. Known for “thoughtful programming, passionate performances, and tireless advocacy for the importance of ensemble singing in the broader music culture,” the group has quickly established itself among the finest choral ensembles in North America.

Our son, the tenor Andrew Bearden Brown, is a member of Ensemble Altera, and I recently featured works from their program A Christmas Present, described as “a sumptuous collection of seasonal music written in the new millennium.”

Today I want to celebrate the release of Altera’s first commercial album.

The Lamb’s Journey: A Choral Narrative from Gibbons to Barber, releases in full on March 22nd on Alpha Classics. It is available on CD and on all streaming platforms.

Two of the selections have been pre-released in video version to whet the appetite. O salutaris Hostia by the Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds features the beautiful voices of soprano soloists Eleonore Cockerham and Elijah McCormack.

The second preview track from the debut album is Antonio Lotti‘s Crucifixus, a work for which the 17th century Italian composer is most famous.

Here’s how the Alpha Classics website describes this album:

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 program 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?

Upcoming projects for the group “include A New Song: Psalms for the Soul, charting a survey of the Psalms of the Hebrew Bible, in all their dizzying variety, and Feminine Voices, featuring works by female composers for treble voices arrayed around Britten’s Ceremony of Carols.” Additionally, Altera will be making their debut at Carnegie Hall in Brahms’ Requiem, on May 9th with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.

We’ll be there!

More to come . . .

DJB

Photo credit: Ensemble Altera