Theatre of Voices
Theatre of Voices is one of the most admired and versatile vocal ensembles from the late 20th century. Led by founder and artistic director Paul Hillier, the group has performed a variety of works, including Medieval chant, Renaissance works by Lassus and Tallis, popular Christmas carols, and 20th century works by composers like Pärt and Cage. The ensemble has made numerous recordings, most often for the Harmonia Mundi and Dacapo labels. Its size has ranged from one to nearly two dozen singers over its history.
Theatre of Voices gave its first official concert in June 1992 at the Berkeley Early Music Festival. Hillier had actually presented concerts of modern music in 1989 in which his early music vocal group, the Hilliard Ensemble, used the name Theatre of Voices. The development of the group that would become Theatre of Voices began in 1990 when Hillier took a teaching position at the University of California. The formation was not finalized until that 1992 debut concert. The group later moved its base of operations to Bloomington, Indiana, where Hillier relocated to serve on the faculty of Indiana University School of Music (Early Music Institute). When Hillier moved to Copenhagen in 2003, the ensemble also expanded its geographical horizons.
Theatre of Voices' first recording, William Byrd: Motets & Mass for Four Voices, was issued in 1994 on the Harmonia Mundi label. By then, the group was carrying a busy schedule and, over the next decade, would appear at major concert venues throughout the Americas and Europe, including New York, Paris, and Berlin. It appeared on a six-part nationwide syndicated radio broadcast for the series Millennium of Music and also on the radio program St. Paul Sunday Morning. In 1997, Oxford University Press published Hillier's book Arvo Pärt. That same year, Hillier led Theatre of Voices in a recording of Pärt's sacred works on Harmonia Mundi, entitled De Profundis, which made Billboard's Top Ten. A second popular recording of the composer's works by Theatre of Voices, I Am the True Vine, was issued on the same label in 2000.
The ensemble has remained active both in the concert hall and on recordings in the new century. The 2006 schedule included a tour of the U.K. and an appearance at the ILIOS Festival in Norway with the ensemble presenting Stockhausen's Stimmung, among other works. That year, the group released Cantigas on Harmonia Mundi. The group's world premiere recording of David Lang's Pulitzer Prize-winning Little Match Girl Passion won a Grammy Award in 2010 for Best Small Ensemble Performance. The group has continued to collaborate with composers, including Kaija Saariaho, John Luther Adams, and Michael Gordon, among many others. In 2019, Theatre of Voices premiered Gordon's choral work A Western. The group was heard in 2022 on the Deutsche Grammophon album Jóhann Jóhannsson: Drone Mass with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME).
© Robert Cummings /TiVo
Similar artists
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Drone Mass
Johann Johannsson, Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier, American Contemporary Music Ensemble
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on Feb 4, 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Lang: The Little Match Girl Passion (Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier)
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on Dec 21, 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Josquin Desprez: Missa de Beata Virgine: Jean Mouton: Motets
Paul Hillier, Theatre of Voices
Masses, Passions, Requiems - Released by harmonia mundi on Mar 7, 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Christmas Story
Theatre of Voices, Ars Nova Copenhagen, Paul Hillier
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on Sep 13, 2011
24-Bit 88.2 kHz - Stereo -
All is calm, all is bright: Christmas Favourites
Theatre of Voices and The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on Nov 30, 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Drone Mass
Johann Johannsson, Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier, American Contemporary Music Ensemble
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on Feb 4, 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Asalto al Castillo
Alberto Iglesias, Marin Cazacu, Theatre of Voices, Flemish Radio Orchestra
Classical - Released by Quartet Records on Oct 27, 2023
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Monastic Chant
Theatre of Voices and Paul Hillier
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on May 27, 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Thomas Tallis: Lamentations, Motets & String Music
Paul Hillier, Theatre of Voices, The King's Noyse, David Douglass
Sacred Vocal Music - Released by harmonia mundi on Feb 9, 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Klassische Weihnacht
Theatre of Voices, RIAS Kammerchor, Philippe Herreweghe, Paul Hillier and Johann Sebastian Bach
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on Nov 30, 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Buxtehude & His Circle
Theatre of Voices, Jakob Bloch Jespersen, Paul Hillier
Chamber Music - Released by Dacapo on Apr 1, 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Carols From the Old & New Worlds
Theatre of Voices and Paul Hillier
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on Jan 10, 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
John Cage: Litany for the Whale
Paul Hillier, Theatre of Voices, Terry Riley
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on Jun 10, 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gudmundsen-Holmgreen: Mixed Company
London Sinfonietta, Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier
Chamber Music - Released by Dacapo on Mar 3, 2014
24-Bit 88.2 kHz - Stereo -
Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen: Green Ground (Live)
Kronos Quartet, Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier
Classical - Released by Dacapo on Aug 26, 2016
24-Bit 88.2 kHz - Stereo -
Christmas Carols through the Ages
Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier, Choir of Clare College, Graham Ross
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on Dec 10, 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Stories: Berio and friends
Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on Oct 5, 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Line Tjørnhøj: enTmenschT
Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier
Classical - Released by Dacapo Records on May 19, 2023
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Cantigas
Paul Hillier, Theatre of Voices, Andrew Lawrence-King
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on Aug 8, 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Carols from the Old & New Worlds
Paul Hillier, Theatre of Voices
Mélodies - Released by harmonia mundi on Jan 10, 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Home to Thanksgiving: Songs of Thanks and Praise
Paul Hillier, Theatre of Voices, His Majestie's Clerkes
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on Aug 17, 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo