EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble

REPERTOIRE

EXAUDI’s wide-ranging repertoire is centred on contemporary music, either as the sole focus or in combination with other repertoire, typically medieval, Renaissance or early baroque.

We are always interested in discussing specific concert or repertoire proposals with promoters. In addition we have developed a number of programmes for 2006 onwards which can be tailored to suit the demands of a particular occasion.

SAMPLE PROGRAMMES 2008

Women of Love, Women of War
3 sopranos and harpsichord
From the bedchamber to the battlefield, with swoons of pleasure and cries of anguish, the sopranos of EXAUDI present a programme of captivating drama. Lovesongs of the Italian Baroque – Monteverdi, Strozzi, Luzzaschi, Steffani – surround solo works including Giacomo Carissimi’s heart-rending Lament of Mary Stuart, Elisabeth Lutyens’s haunting Lament of Isis on the Death of Osiris, and Judith Weir’s bloodthirsty classic King Harald’s Saga, an ‘opera in three acts for solo soprano’.

Music for Four
4 voices and piano
A unusual and fascinating mixture of music for four solo voices (SATB), ‘Music for Four’ traverses a gamut from medieval art songs to experimental radicalism. Suggested repertoire includes medieval ‘ars subtilior’ motets and works by Byrd and Josquin beside modern repertoire by Cage, Skempton, Maxwell Davies, Fox and Weeks.

Gesualdo: Fire and Ice
7 voices, SAATTBB
The madrigals of Don Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, were and are a phenomenon. Expressionist before their time, dripping with melancholy, anguish and furious abandon, they trace dark paths of obsession, desire and madness. EXAUDI is one of the few ensembles specialising in these works; our selection is from Books V and VI, alongside his dark Tenebrae Responsories, and the programme includes narrations from his dramatic life.

Music Divine
8 voices, SSAATTBB
A perfect English evening of madrigals old and new: the grace of Wilbye, the gravity of Byrd, the passion of Tomkins, the wit of Weelkes… and many new works, some specially composed for the virtuoso singers of EXAUDI, by a host of Britain’s finest contemporary composers.

Juice of the Pomegranate: The Song of Songs
8 voices, SSAATTBB
A ravishing programme of music setting texts from the biblical Song of Songs. Masterpieces by Lassus, Monteverdi, Victoria and Schütz are the centrepiece of a programme that also includes new works by Howard Skempton and John Habron.

Mystery and Revelation
8 voices, SSAATTBB
A sumptuous programme of spiritual works, Mystery and Revelation explores the theme of the mystery of creation through the music of composers from the middle ages to the present day. Includes Hildegard, Obrecht, Josquin, Scelsi, Finnissy, Toovey, Rihm, Weeks.

NOW
8 voices, SSAATTBB, plus violin
A programme of new works by a selection of international composers, alongside classics of the repertoire from Nono, Scelsi, Rihm and others, as performed in ECAT and Girona, November 2007.

La guerre

10 voices, SSAATTTBBB

La guerre explores the piety and barbarity of the Holy War, juxtaposing two works that incorporate the brutality of the battlefield within the cycle of the Christian Mass. Includes Victoria’s Missa pro Victoria, Janequin’s dramatic chanson La guerre and Judith Weir’s virtuosic showpiece Missa del Cid.

American Choruses

12 or 16 voices, organ

Music by Billings, Ives, Cage, Wolff and Christopher Fox, exploring ideas and ideals of America.

European Masters

12 voices

A programme of passionate and visceral vocal music from the last fifty years of European music, treating themes of suffering and liberation and including music by Ferneyhough, Fox, Sciarrino, Xenakis and Finnissy.