Vox Luminis
The small Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis specializes in
Renaissance and Baroque music, cultivating a unique sound in which
voices within the group are distinct and differentiated. Vox
Luminis was founded in the city of Namur in 2004 by Lionel Meunier,
who has remained its artistic director. Members are drawn from the
student body of the Royal Conservatory of the Hague and other
schools. It performs about 60 concerts a year, in Belgium and far
beyond. The group's size depends on repertoire, but a typical vocal
group for a cappella choral music is 12. It has also collaborated
with a variety of instrumental ensembles and maintained a small
orchestra of its own. Whatever the forces, Vox Luminis, in the
words of the group's website, "seduces as much through the
personality of each timbre as it does through the colour and the
uniformity of the voices." The group has appeared at major
festivals in Belgium and abroad. It has appeared at increasingly
prestigious halls such as London's Wigmore Hall, the Oratoire du
Louvre in Paris, the Auditoria Nacional de Música in Madrid, the
Centre for Fine Arts and the Flagey Radio House in Brussels, and
the Belem Cultural Centre in Lisbon. The year 2017 saw Vox Luminis'
debuts at the Philharmonie halls in Berlin and Cologne, and at the
Bachfest Leipzig. It also began a residency at the Bruges
Concertgebouw. Among the factors bringing international recognition
to Vox Luminis has been the group's growing catalog of recordings,
which numbered 13 as of early 2018. Vox Luminis has recorded for a
choice group of labels in France and northwestern Europe, beginning
in 2008 with a recording of Domenico Scarlatti's Stabat Mater on
the Ricercar label. It has continued to record for Ricercar,
issuing Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott: Luther and the Music of the
Reformation in 2017, but in 2016 it signed with France's Alpha
label and released a widely well-reviewed album of Bach cantatas,
Actus Tragicus. It followed up with a distinctive recording of
Handel's Dixit Dominus, HWV 232, and Bach's Magnificat in D major,
BWV 243; AllMusic.com praised the "smooth and even delicate,"
ten-voice recording of the generally splendor-laden Bach. In the
late 2010s Vox Luminis planned to collaborate with the Freiburg
Baroque Orchestra, an instrumental ensemble of similar orientation.
~ James Manheim Similar artists
Albums
5
albums sorted by Most acclaimed
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$8.99
Sacred Vocal Music - Released August 19, 2016 | Ricercar
Hi-Res
Booklet
Distinctions
5 de Diapason -
4F de Télérama -
Gramophone Editor's Choice -
4 étoiles de Classica -
5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
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Classical - Released November 10, 2016 | Alpha
Hi-Res
Booklet
Distinctions
4F de Télérama
$18.99
$12.99
Classical - Released November 23, 2018 | Alpha
Hi-Res
Booklet
$13.49
$8.99
Classical - Released November 17, 2017 | Alpha
Hi-Res
Booklet
After several recordings on Ricercar and a first disc on Alpha, "Actus Tragicus", containing early Bach cantatas, ‘of staggering profundity, purity and beauty’ (ffff Télérama), Lionel Meunier and his ensemble Vox Luminis devote this new project to two showpieces by Handel and Bach. Of these two composers born in 1685, the first travelled to Italy in 1707 and made a powerful impression in Rome with the creation of his Dixit Dominus, while the second produced one of his finest compositional tours de force in the Magnificat of 1723/32-35. Two works from the core repertoire of the Belgian ensemble, here fielding combined vocal and instrumental forces, which is perfectly versed in the style and expression of Baroque rhetoric. © Alpha Classics
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Classical - Released May 20, 2014 | Ricercar
Booklet
