Fretwork have commissioned Orlando Gough (Birds on Fire) to use these scant facts to create a journey in sound that charts Drake's remarkable feat. Music from the 16th century prior to Drake's departure is woven seamlessly into a through-composed piece of music lasting 70 minutes. Drake stopped in Morocco, The Cape Verde Islands, Brasil, Argentina, Patagonia; passed through the Straights of Magellan (where he lost one of the sister ships, and another turned back, and where Drake's ship, the Pelican, was renamed The Golden Hinde); then up the coast of Chile, Mexico, California, across the Pacific Ocean to the Moluccas, Java, then round Cape of Good Hope, Sierra Leone and finally Plymouth in September 1580.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

� The Temple Church Choir gives the world premiere recording of Nico Muhly's Our Present Charter - a brand new fourmovement work commissioned by the choir to celebrate 800 years since the sealing of the Magna Carta. � Directed by Roger Sayer and featuring organist Greg Morris, the recording also features choral works by Parry, Vaughan Williams, Walton, Bairstow, Tavener and Haydn. � The Temple Church Choir, founded 1841, consists of eighteen boy choristers and twelve professional choirmen. � It is still considered to be one of the finest choirs in London, a reputation it quickly gained after it's founding. � The American composer Nico Muhly (b. 1981) received his Masters in Music from the Juilliard School where he studied under Christopher Rouse and John Corigliano. � He also spent several years working for Phillip Glass as a MIDI programmer and editor. � His wide scope of work for soloists, ensembles, and organizations covers multiple genres, including music for film, opera, choral, chamber, orchestral, vocal and electronic forces in solo or combinations there of.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Bob Chilcott has been called "a contemporary hero of British Choral music" (The Observer). He has become one of the most performed choral composers in the world. This album brings together arrangements by Chilcott, as well as original compositions. Chilcott was conductor of the chorus of The Royal College of Music in London between 1997 and 2004, and has been Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Singers since 2002. The Tenebrae Consort is an ensemble handpicked from the award-winning choir Tenebrae. Under the direction of Nigel Short, they have been hailed as delivering "impeccable, exquisite performances, breathing and flowing together with near miraculous ensemble and an astonishingly pure sense of intonation... rich, warm, and thrillingly expressive... achingly beautiful" (The Arts Desk).

Hertfordshire Chorus continues to build on their reputation for commissioning and performing some of the very best in contemporary choral music. In their first recording with Signum they are joined by the BBC Concert Orchestra for a 2-album set featuring James McCarthy’s Codebreaker (an exploration of the life of the pioneering computer scientist and mathematician Alan Turing) and Will Todd’s Ode to a Nightingale (setting the famous poem by John Keats). Hertfordshire Chorus is known for commissioning new music, high-quality yet passionate singing, tackling difficult, rarely performed music as well as much-loved and well-known pieces and is one of the UK’s finest symphonic choirs. Under the musical direction of David Temple our members give their all to singing, believing in the sheer joy and power of music to bring people closer together.

This second disc with the Choir of the Queen's College Oxford is centered around the concept of "revelation", both divine revelation (particularly the apocalyptic visions fo the book of Revelation) and revelatory visions of earth and heaven. The bulk of the pieces on the recording are inspired by the extraordinary visions of John, the writer of th eBook of Revelation, describing the ravaging of the world through divine judgement, the battles between good and evil, and the world's eventual remaking as "a new heaven and a new earth" in which death and suffering are no more. The album features three new commissions, by Phillip Cooke, Toby Young and Marco Galvani, who was a final-year student at queen's at the time of recording.

London Early Opera (LEO) have recorded a unique program of Handel’s Italian-inspired works, devised by harpsichordist, conductor, early music specialist and director Bridget Cunningham and featuring a unique family collaboration from world-renowned soprano sisters Sophie and Mary Bevan alongside their uncle, bass Benjamin Bevan. LEO are leading exponents of baroque research as they work closely with musicologists, historians, editors and researchers, interestingly linking dramatic music and singing with narration and art history for their concert performances.

Deemed to have "A voice of silken beauty" and ranked among the "Top 10 High Flyers - a new generation of sopranos destined to have impressive careers in 2014" by Opera Now, rising operatic soprano Ilona Domnich releases her debut Signum album. Comprising arias and songs from her operatic heroines, including Gilda from Verdi's Rigoletto, Magda from Puccini's La Rondine and Rosina from Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Domnich is joined by Italian baritone Leo Nucci and Southbank Sinfonia conducted by Simon Over, with whom Ms. Domnich maintains a fruitful artistic collaboration.