The UK’s foremost new-music vocal ensemble celebrates two decades of trail-blazing activity with a programme of transcendental, ecstatic and meditative new works, alongside the timeless beauty of Hildegard’s 12th-century hymns, in new arrangements by James Weeks.

Hildegard provides a connecting thread in a luminous sequence of stunning new music for voices. Pärt’s Missa Syllabica is one of the purest expressions of his tintinnabulation technique, while Cage’s Ear for EAR has an almost Gregorian purity.

Alvin Lucier’s Unamuno explores the acoustics of a single chord while Catherine Lamb’s song/form spins a slow melody from the natural resonance of the harmonic series. The programme is completed by a world premiere from young French composer Bernard Champeau on texts by the poet Susan Howe, and a newly-revised piece by veteran American composer Gloria Coates, a rainbow of shimmering glissandi.

EXAUDI is grateful to the RVW Trust and the Hinrichsen Foundation for their support of this concert.