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The Brabant Ensemble is an Oxford-based early music group directed by Stephen Rice.
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Latest News
The Editor's Choice
The Brabant Ensemble's new CD, of motets by Nicolas Gombert, has been awarded Editor's Choice in the November 2007 issue of Gramophone magazine. This is the second such honour in a row for the ensemble, whose recording of Pierre de Manchicourt was Editor's Choice in the June 2007 issue.
"The Brabant Ensemble, under their director Stephen Rice, are clearly one of the newer vocal groups to watch (or rather hear). Having narrowly missed out on a Gramophone Award this year, their new Gombert album (the first to concentrate on the composer’s motets) confirms the high standards they had previously set."
"As the Moon Follows the Sun"
William Mundy and the Chapel Royal
including the first modern performance of Mundy's Canticles for Trebles
Directed by Stephen Rice
St Mary Magdalen Church, Oxford
Saturday 13 October at 8pm
Tickets £12 (concessions £8, students £5).
Tickets are available from info@brabantensemble.com, by phone (01865) 459762 or at the door.
New Gombert Release announced
On 1 September The Brabant Ensemble's fourth CD will be released. The disc features motets by Nicolas Gombert, and has already been previewed on BBC Radio 3's In Tune programme (14 August).
Manchicourt Released
The Brabant Ensemble is delighted to announce the release of its third CD, featuring works by Pierre de Manchicourt (c.1510-1564). The CD has already attracted the following review:
“From the ecstatic opening bars of the Regina caeli, which begins the recital, to the more austere grandeur of Manchicourt’s only setting of the Magnificat, with which it closes, there is not a less than thrilling moment on the whole disc. Non-experts will scarcely be aware of the hyper-refined contrapuntal techniques, daring use of dissonance and cross-relations, interspersed with passages of telling homophony; they will simply be swept along by the sheer aural brilliance of Manchicourt’s polyphony.
With only two previous recordings to its name, The Brabant Ensemble has already established itself as perhaps England’s most accomplished interpreter of Renaissance sacred music. Its intelligent phrasing, purity of vocal production and well-judged use of pause and inflexion are simply astonishing. Its vivid presentation of Manchicourt’s shimmering, flamboyant polyphony is as moving as it is intellectually stimulating.”
(International Record Review, April 2007)
The CD is released on Hyperion Records (see http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/ for further information and purchasing details).
iTunes
We're pleased to announce that Behold How Joyful - Clemens non Papa: Mass and Motets, and the new Manchicourt release are now available to download via iTunes!