Contrapunctus Early Music

With Advent just six weeks away, this live recording from The King's Counterpoint, newly available today on Spotify to stream, and on iTunes and Amazon to download or stream, is a great way to celebrate the choir’s latest release. CD with booklet and sleeve notes also available via David or Judith.

The Truth from Above - Traditional English carol, arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) The King's CounterpointMusical Director David E. A. Acresfrom "Christmas Through the Ages, Vol. 7" - Online Christmas Concert 2020Recorded LIVE at St. Stephe...

Tickets are already selling well, over in the U.K., for our concert in Buckfast Abbey, England, next month. The Abbey’s website says:

David Acres returns to Buckfast after a seven year break with his choir from South Carolina, The King’s Counterpoint, members of their sister choir Contrapunctus from Cleveland, Ohio and also, members of Counterpoint, who used to regularly sing here at the Abbey for 28 years. The choirs join together to bring a wonderfully eclectic choice of sacred choral music by composers including Anton Bruckner, Moses Hogan, Diogo Melgaz. Frank Ticheli, William Billings, Herbert Sumsion, and two premier works written for the choir by Graham Keitch.

The King’s Counterpoint
David Acres director
David Davies organ

Last year, our sister choir The King’s Counterpoint were supposed to be singing the week’s service in Canterbury Cathedral in early August, but the regulations surrounding covid had put a stop to our visit.
We received a request from our dear friend Ian Roberts, who deals with visiting choirs to the cathedral, and the choir gathered together on 23rd July at the Bishop Gadsden Retirement Community Chapel to record three anthems/motets and 3 psalms to forward to Ian, that would be used at three services in the cathedral during the week that we had intended being there.
Twenty-four members of the choir attended that Saturday morning, and the resulting recordings have not been enhanced or engineered in an way. The superb acoustics in the chapel speak for themselves.
Paul Thompson edited these six pieces and David will post all the recordings over the next couple of weeks.

Salve Regina - Diogo Dias Melgás (1638-1700) The King's CounterpointMusical Director David E. A. AcresRecorded July, 2021, at Bishop Gadsden Chapel, James Island, South Carolina

A week ago back in 2015, the choir gave a concert of Spanish sacred choral music in Mary Queen of Peace Church on Pearl Road in Old Brooklyn, Cleveland. It was a glorious afternoon of renaissance polyphony, performed by seventeen members of the choir.
We have now finalised our performance for next year in the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in downtown Cleveland. The concert, entitled Lent Reflections, embraces music from renaissance to modern day composers including Allegri/Bai, Victoria, Gombert, Guerrero, Morales, Bach, Elgar and Sanders. For the first time, the choir combines sopranos, altos, countertenors, tenors and basses from Contrapunctus and The King’s Counterpoint, which we hope will become a regular amalgamation from both ensembles. The singers had been confirmed and the concert is set for Friday, March 25th 2022 at 7:30 in the Cathedral.
Here is a little reminder of the choir’s last outing in 2015 as an SATB ensemble.

Taedet animam meam from Officium Defunctorum (1603) - Tomás Luis de Victoria (c.1548-1611) Contrapunctus Early MusicMusical Director David E. A. Acresfrom "The Glories of Spanish Polyphony"Recorded Live 31-May-2015Mary Queen of Peace, Cleveland, Oh...

From our sister choir in Charleston, South Carolina, wishing you all a Happy and blessed Christmas.

In the Bleak Midwinter – Gustav Holst (1874-1934) The King's CounterpointMusical Director, David E. A. Acresfrom "Christmas Through the Ages, Vol. 7" - Online Christmas Concert 2020Recorded LIVE at St. Steph...

Listen here to The King’s Counterpoint’s FREE online Christmas Concert. The link will remain live until Twelth Night, Tuesday, January 5th, for you to view as many times as you like.

King’s Counterpoint “Christmas Through the Ages, Vol VII” - Dec 2020 Christmas Through the Ages, Vol. 7 - Recorded LIVE at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Charleston, South Carolina (December, 2020)The King's CounterpointDavid...

Immense kudos to everyone involved here, and in particular to Voces 8 for their energy, foresight and trailblazing, in finding new and adventurous ways to continue to make music together and bring it to a choral/music-starved world. At £12.50 a ticket to see individual concerts, or different combinations of all sixteen concerts, the first eleven, or the six Bach Christmas Oratorio cantatas, this is a glorious way to celebrate a Musical Christmas. The concerts run until January 15th and each one lasts for around sixty minutes, and they can all be watched live or on demand. The internationally renowned line-up includes The Tallis Scholars, The Cathedral Choir of Westminster Abbey, The Gabrieli Consort and Players under Paul McCreesh, I Fagiolini, the London Adventist Chorale, Voces 8, Anúna, Apollo 5, amacord, The Aeolians, Rachel Podger, the glorious baritone Roderick Williams.
The King’s Counterpoint took its lead from Voces 8 when we broadcast our recent online concert in October, and we have now continued to follow that lead with our Christmas Through The Ages VII concert. This is a FREE ONLINE CONCERT being broadcast on Sunday, December 20th at 3:00pm - access information to follow in the next few days.
We are all indebted to the members of Voces 8 for their pioneering approach in beginning to bring live music back to our audiences. Music had lost its voice for over six months, but these young fearless musicians took a measured overview of a way forward, and now their success is inspiring choirs throughout the world to look at ways to bring back live music to starved and hungry viewer/listener audiences everywhere.

Choral music to lift Christmas spirits English ensemble Voces8 is among the groups lending their voices to online concerts this season