Ars Nova Copenhagen is one of the world’s top chamber vocal ensembles. This programme of choral music by nine diverse contemporary composers, including Louis Andriessen, Steve Reich, Terry Riley and David Lang, is unified by one man: British conductor/director Paul Hillier. The opening work by Howard Skempton, Rise Up My Love, written for the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, springs as if from English Anglican soil until a low bass interpolation suggests different preoccupations, distant shores. Michael Gordon’s haunting He Saw a Skull sets a Talmudic text. Paul Hillier’s own, wordless arrangement of Reich’s Clapping Music is inspired. The 12 singers of Ars Nova are immaculate throughout.
