2012 NCEM Composers Award

The 2012 NCEM Composers Award, presented by the National Centre for Early Music in association with BBC Radio 3 and The Tallis Scholars, will be launched on BBC Radio 3's Early Music Show on Sunday 15 January in an interview with Peter Phillips.

For more information and details on how to enter please visit www.ncem.co.uk/composersaward2012

Choral at Cadogan 2011/12                                          6 September 2011

Last night we performed at the Launch of the 2011/12 Choral at Cadogan Series, in which we have two concerts this Season. We enjoyed a lovely evening talking to subscribers and friends of the Cadogan Hall, and even sold a few tickets!

Tickets for the whole 8 concert series are on sale now, you can call the box office on 020 7730 5744 or go online to buy them at http://www.cadoganhall.com/brochure_choral.php

“thrilling…like a revelation”         Merton College Passiontide Festival

“…To say that Victoria makes a virtue out of restraint sounds worthy, but to experience it is thrilling…this perfectly focused concert reminded us Victoria was one of the masters of his era, or any era…

There were only ten singers - fewer than some of the Scholars' well-known rivals - but they produce an ideal sound, solid and rounded but not luxurious. This way Phillips has of conjuring intensity is fascinating, because it seems to rise out of the music itself as an inner glow. You register the effect of rising emotional heat, but not its cause.

In the Offertorium [Victoria's Requiem] the tenors' downward plunge pushed through the sound, giving an edge to the prayer to “deliver us from the jaws of hell”. And later, what a strange harsh sound the choir gave to the word “ira”, referring to the Day of Wrath, and how the modest increase of pace had an almost panic-stricken effect. All tiny things, but in the context they were like a revelation…”

Ivan Hewett, The Telegraph, April 2011

400th Anniversary of Tomás Luis de Victoria

We have waited a long time to celebrate the anniversary of this most loved of High Renaissance composers. Unlike his great contemporaries, Palestrina and Lassus, Victoria lived into the 17th century, only writing his greatest work - the six-voice Requiem - in 1605. By that time he had come to represent an entire school of composers, epitomising intensely spiritual Spanish expression.

As part of the celebrations for the 400th Anniversary of Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548--1611), Gimell and The Tallis Scholars have released a video on YouTube of the First Lamentation for Maundy Thursday.

To celebrate the 400th Anniversary of the death of Victoria on 20th August 1611, the Tallis Scholars are offering a selection of programmes intended to provide insight into the work of Victoria, as well as setting it in context alongside the work of his contemporaries, predecessors and successors.

Grammy nomination for Victoria Lamentations

The Tallis Scholars recent recording of the Victoria Lamentations has been nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Small Ensemble Performance (104), marking the second consecutive year in which a Tallis Scholars CD has been nominated.

http://www.grammy.com/nominees

Gimell Records and The Tallis Scholars celebrate 30 years of recordings

Award-winning label Gimell Records celebrates 30 years of recordings with 3 specially-priced box sets - one set for each decade of recordings. Each set of 4 CDs features over 5 hours of the award-winning performances that helped establish the sacred vocal music of the Renaissance as one of the great repertoires of western classical music.

On the 30th anniversary, Peter Phillips said: "The creation of Gimell has meant that for 30 years I have been able to record whatever music I wanted. Every one of our fifty releases has been planned, recorded and edited by me and Steve Smith, my loyal producer and co-founder of Gimell Records. This has been a unique privilege for a concert artist - never being asked to cut corners. I am immensely grateful to my singers, our concert agents, and our CD distributors but especially to those hundreds of thousands of supporters worldwide who own a Gimell recording."

Listen to the NCEM competition winners, Palestrina, Phinot and Croce from Chester Cathedral on BBC R3, Sunday 11 July

The prestigious NCEM Composers Award 2010, now in its second year, presented in partnership with BBC Radio 3 and The Tallis Scholars, has been won by 16-year-old Owain Park with 'Sweet Day' and 25-year-old Alexander Campkin with 'O Magnum Mysterium'.

The winning pieces were performed by The Tallis Scholars during their concert in Chester Cathedral as part of the Chester Summer Music Festival on Wednesday 30 June 2010. Presented by Lucie Skeaping, BBC Radio 3 will broadcast highlights during the Early Music Show on Sunday 11 July.

The next NCEM Composers Award with The Tallis Scholars and BBC Radio 3 is scheduled for spring/summer 2012 - further details can be accessed via the NCEM website.

'WHAT a curtain-raiser for this year's Chester Summer Music Festival... At all times, the choir was beautifully balanced with perfect diction. While it was possible to hear many of the solo voices, the way director Peter Phillips makes this ensemble sound as one is near genius.'
Glyn Mon Hughes, Liverpool Daily Post, 1 July 2010

For further information please see www.ncem.co.uk and www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/earlymusicshow.

NEW RECORDING - VICTORIA: Lamentations of Jeremiah

"...beautifully understated recording of one of the greatest achievements of Spanish Golden Age polyphony."
The Guardian, 5 *****

"...a plangent beauty, which is characterised by the lucent sound and faultless intonation that have been the defining strengths of the choir during the last four decades."
BBC Music Magazine

Released on 29th March, this is the 50th recording that the Tallis Scholars have made with their record label, Gimell Records, and 2010 is also the year in which Gimell celebrates its 30th anniversary. As Music Web International’s Recording of the Month, "the disc can be said very fairly to be a celebration of the core virtues both of the label and of the Tallis Scholars...an outstanding release that celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of Gimell in the most distinguished manner possible."

Now available on the Gimell label: www.gimell.com.

Peter Phillips takes on ‘Soul Music’

Peter Phillips is to appear in BBC Radio 4’s ‘Soul Music’ on Tuesday 1st September at 1:30pm, to be repeated the following Saturday. ‘Soul Music’ is a series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact, and in this episode, Peter will be interviewed by Rosie Boulton about the Allegri Miserere, alongside Roy Goodman. He will appear in a second episode, discussing Vaughan Williams’ inspirational Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, alongside Michael Kennedy, on Tuesday 15th September.

The Tallis Scholars on BBC Radio 3

The group appeared on The Early Music Show on 19th July, at 13:00.

Catherine Bott presented a performance of John Taverner's Missa Corona Spirea by The Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips, given as part of the York Early Music Festival 2009.

The ensemble also performed the winning two entries of the 2009 National Centre for Early Music's Young Composers' Award - Arise by Elizabeth Edwards, and God by Michael Perrett. Catherine introduced the music, met the composers and spoke with Peter Phillips about the work of The Tallis Scholars, and about the competition.

This concert was the opening performance of the York Early Music Festival 2009, which took place in York Minster on 10th July 2009:

‘The opening salvo in this year’s festival, on until July 18, was stylishly unleashed by The Tallis Scholars under their founder-director Peter Phillips.’
Martin Dreyer, The Press, July 2009