World Renowned Choirs Sale
Over 275 titles featuring world renowned choral ensembles are on sale now at ArkivMusic!
Discover titles featuring works performed by acclaimed choirs including The St. Olaf Choir, Choir of King's College, Cambridge, The Sixteen, Westminster Choir and more.
Shop the sale before it ends at 9:00am ET, Tuesday, April 14th, 2026.
262 products
Gordon: Anonymous Man / Nally, The Crossing
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REVIEW:
Michael Gordon's Anonymous Man is a major work from a major composer in the so-called Minimalist camp. It is a personal reflection on home and homelessness, life and death, and being with and without. It has to do with living in his NYC neighborhood from the time it was a largely abandoned industrial zone through to its gentrification. It is about several homeless men who lived across from him there.
It has pulsating sections and others that gently overlap themselves within themselves. The mood is thoughtful. Time passes and backtracks. There is the inexorable, somehow.
The Crossing are the ideal group to make of this music something special. And they do. It is not music that is self-evident or predictable, even if you know Michael Gordon’s music well. It is the opposite of banal, yet it expresses an experience of things filled with a sameness. It is filled with a ruminative facticity that perhaps fits perfectly the mood of current locked-down stasis within a jarring turn of things to pass.
– Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review
The Call of Rome / Christophers, The Sixteen
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REVIEW:
At their best, The Sixteen and their director Harry Christophers strike an exciting balance between informed historical performance and broad public appeal. The Call of Rome falls into this group, with limpid performances of some Renaissance favorites, including the most favorite of all, the Miserere of Gregorio Allegri. Christophers and The Sixteen inquire into the role of Rome in the music of the later 16th century, setting two native-born Romans, Allegri and the underrated Felice Anerio, with two composers, Josquin Desprez and Victoria, who felt "the call to Rome." The program holds together, and the singing is up to the usual high standard of The Sixteen. The album is a good place to start for those new to The Sixteen and is also worth the time of those familiar with the music of the 16th century.
– All Music Guide (James Manheim)
Stanford: String Quartets Nos. 1, 2, & 6 / Dante Quartet
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REVIEW:
The Dante Quartet play splendidly throughout the album, with noticeably clean articulation and gratifying intonation. Unerringly accomplished, these Dante performances, combined with spirited interpretations that breathe vitality and enthusiasm, would pass the most rigorous examination. The engineering team, recording in St Nicholas Parish Church, Thames Ditton, has provided first class sound quality. Stanford biographer Jeremy Dibble has written the booklet notes. Lovers of British music, and Stanford in particular, need not hesitate in acquiring this superb album.
– MusicWeb International
Kayser: Concerto for Horn & Strings; Trio for Oboe, Horn, & Bassoon; Music for Solo Piano / Lindgren, Linder, Holmstrand
Danish composer Leif Kayser could have been 100 years here in 2019 and we are releasing for the first time on modern technology two rare LP issues, one with the Hindemith-inspired Horn Concerto and the Trio which has strong resemblance to the French school. Most important is a series of piano music performed by the virtuoso composer himself. This album is done using the original master tapes and is probably the most significant example of the art of Leif Kayser, a composer strongly in the line of Nielsen. Leif Kayser was an organist and composer. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen with Poul Schierbeck and Hilding Rosenberg and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He later returned to the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen as a teacher. He had extensive concert activities as an organ and piano soloist. His works include orchestral music (four symphonies etc.), compositions and transcriptions for concert band, film music, piano, organ, and chamber works; choral music (five masses etc.) and songs, including children's songs.
Koželuch: Joseph der Menschheit Segen
In No Strange Land: Choral Music by Martin Bussy / Ferris, Sonoro
Choral music has long been at the heart of the distinguished musical career of contemporary composer Martin Bussey – as a director, a singer, and in writing for the medium. Acclaimed London vocal consort Sonoro, with its co-artistic directors Neil Ferris (conductor) and Michael Higgins (organ), explores a broad range of Bussey’s sacred choral music with this captivating programme of world premiere recordings that at once presents a composer with passion and a unique voice, and whose works have contributed much to the genre. Sonoro, founded in 2016 by Neil Ferris and Michael Higgins, has attracted attention for its warm tone, rich blend of colors and vibrancy in performance. ‘Sonoro’ in Italian means ‘sonorous, voices that are rich and full’ and Sonoro lives up to that name as a choir with a distinctive and perfectly blended sound.
THE WAITING SKY
NOCTURNES REQUIEM
Empowering Silenced Voices / Moy, Selvey, Chorosynthesis Singers
This album is a collection of premiere choral works, all with a social conscience firmly in mind. Chorosynthesis Singers, a professional, project-based 12-voice choir, exists to involve world-class performers and composers in the creation and performance of music that connects the art with community, specifically through the lens of social consciousness. The ensemble performs in world-class venues, partners with other organizations as artists-in-residence and concert series guests, and annually provides new music reading sessions. Recently, the group started an online database of socially conscious choral music and internationally released through Centaur Records, Inc. “Empowering Silenced Voices,” an album of new, socially conscious choral music. They were awarded 2nd place for The American Prize 2018 in the Ensemble (Professional Choruses) Division with a special citation for Extraordinary Commitment to New Music. Chorosynthesis Singers are co-directed by artist-educators Wendy Moy and Jeremiah Selvey, who took 3rd and 1st places respectively for The American Prize 2016 in the Conducting (Professional Choruses) Division.
Purcell: Royal Welcome Songs for King Charles II, Vol. 2 / Christophers, The Sixteen Choir
On this release, Harry Christophers and The Sixteen continue their exploration of Purcell’s stunning music written for royal occasions on the third album in their acclaimed series. King Charles II liked to project a strong, stable, divinely legitimated image. Whilst that image had no basis in reality, the scale of his deception and financial skulduggery did not emerge until 19th-century historians discovered secret treaty documents between Charles and King Louis XIV of France. Purcell had no idea of course, and so all of the music on this album celebrates the political triumphs that he and his colleagues thought they had witnessed. It includes the quite brilliant Welcome Songs 'Welcome to all the pleasures' (with its superb six-part fanfares to St Cecilia in the final chorus) and 'From hardy climes'.
Our Dancing Day
Christmas Holidays
Venice in the East / Lingas, Cappella Romana
Matsushita: Consolatio - Contemporary Choral Music
O Lux!
Great Organ Gala!
Journey to Asia
The music of Asia and the Far East is easily distinguishable. This release is a musical exploration of Asia, taking in cultural treasures from nineteen countries of the world’s largest continent, including energizing Chinese New Year’s music, relaxing Japanese flute, thunderous Korean drums, beautiful choral music from Georgia and more. (ARC Music)
We Sing of God
Buchenberg: Choral Works - Dum medium silentium
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An English Coronation, 1902-1953 / McCreesh, Gabrieli Consort
A MusicWeb International Recording of the Year: "This recording was reviewed four times on MWI, and on each occasion, it was nominated as a Recommended recording, once being accorded Recording of the Month status. Now, three of those reviewers have selected it among their Recordings of the Year. With such acclaim, it made the choice of overall Recording of the Year very simple."
The four coronations of the twentieth century were enormous and extravagant. Replete with festive pageantry, these ceremonies were joyful celebrations of British music, employing tremendous forces. Choirs from across London and beyond were marshaled to provide a chorus of over 400 voices; a full-size symphony orchestra was squeezed into Westminster Abbey, whilst bands of fanfare trumpeters led the pomp and celebration- EDWARD VII in 1902, GEORGE V in 1911, GEORGE VI in 1937, and ELIZABETH II in 1953. In the imposing surroundings of Ely Cathedral, Paul McCreesh and Gabrieli bring the history, ceremony and liturgy of these extraordinary events to life. With his renowned creative flair, McCreesh’s painstaking research will provide the springboard for their latest ground-breaking recreation project.
The result will is a joyful celebration of five centuries of choral music, performed with the same vast forces as were heard at the coronation services. Alongside an orchestra of rare early-twentieth century instruments, an extended Gabrieli Consort is amplified by the energetic sound and fresh faces of several hundred young singers from Gabrieli’s choral training programme Gabrieli Roar. The music is interspersed by the coronation liturgy, with Simon Russell Beale speaking the part of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
REVIEWS:
Without precisely recreating any of last century’s four coronations, McCreesh has blended elements from them into a notional kingly crowning. Apart from the splendid ceremonial music, most of the ritual texts are included, with actor Simon Russell Beale enlisted to play the Archbishop of Canterbury. In typical style, McCreesh has assembled a choral mega-force of hundreds of choristers, together with a group of young singers rejoicing in the wonderful name of Gabrieli Roar. Period instruments add to the evocation of time. All these elements together, placed in the grandeur of Ely Cathedral make for a very special encounter with history, ritual and culture.
Although certain musical choices are a given (Parry’s I Was Glad and Handel’s Zadok the Priest) McCreesh has revived some well-crafted but lesser known occasional pieces such as Elgar’s Coronation March and Howells’ The King’s Herald. Generous and forward-looking, he has also commissioned David Matthews to create a new orchestral piece that leads into the National Anthem.
All of the music is delivered with a magnificent sense of occasion. McCreesh deploys his musical army with the precision of a five-star general, making the most of the spatial elements ranging from distant processions to the thunderous, lusty singing of the Old Hundredth in Vaughan Williams’ now revered arrangement. Extracts from the English version of RVW’s serene Mass in G Minor are beautifully sung, contrasting with the punchy drama of Stanford’s Gloria and Walton’s Te Deum.
McCreesh is to be applauded for the breadth and depth of his vision: broad enough to involve large numbers of young people, and new music; admirably deep in attending to performance practice and fine detail. This extraordinary enterprise, involving almost 1,000 performers, will certainly be a benchmark for the next coronation! In the meantime, what will this musical Cecil B. DeMille do next?
-- Limelight
Absolutely top of my list, the huge favourite of the year and one of those releases you really feel privileged to have been able to review, was also one of the most gloriously eccentric. Paul McCreesh brought together music from each of the four coronations of the 20th century and roped in a huge cast of singers and instrumentalists to complement his own Gabrieli Consort. The results are truly spectacular.
-- MusicWeb International
Pageantry & Poetry
Lemare Affair
Love is come again - Music for the Springhead Easter Play
