Counterpoint
Share
Choral music from medieval to modern - A chamber choir founded and directed by David Acres Louis en l'Isle next to Notre Dame.
01/10/2025
Our sister choir, The King’s Counterpoint in South Carolina, are touring Brittany in July. They already have three concerts in the pipeline, with just the fourth one to finalise! They are singing in Locmaria on the banks of the Odet at Quimper. The second venue is Loctudy, where Counterpoint used to stay when on tour in Brittany, and the third church is at La Foret-Fouesnant.
The church in Quimper traces its history back to when the Nave was constructed in the 11th century. The church at Loctudy is from the late 1000s to the early 1100s, whilst the church at La Foret-Fouesnant was built in the early 1500s. Counterpoint has sung at all the churches from the early 1990s through to 2011. The acoustics are superb, and the character and beauty of the buildings are second-to-none.
The choir is beavering away raising the final amounts of money needed to complete the trip, and if anyone would like to donate to help them reach thier final goal, they would be extremely grateful. David says, …’it is going to be a singular honour to represent South Carolina in bringing the best of sacred a ca****la music to our Breton audiences, and I truly can’t wait to hear these ancient and much-loved buildings echoing to the very best that the Low Country has to offer, when it comes to choral music.’
07/26/2024
Our sister-choir in America, The King’s Counterpoint, is very excited to have been invited to take part in a commission for a new 40-minute choral work. 2025 will be the 300th anniversary of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons; to mark this, David says: ‘Joanna Forbes L'Estrange has given herself the challenge of making Vivaldi’s wonderful music singable by choirs by adding words from poetry (including Emily Brontë, Henry Alford and Robert Frost) and from the Bible. The piece is called A Season To Sing and is scored for choir, string quartet or organ/piano. As you can hear from the attached clip from Joanna, the work includes beautiful choral writing and harmonies, and choirs are also required to use more than their voices at times!
The Four Seasons is ‘bookended’ by Joanna’s music, where she is using the text from Ecclesiastes 3 - To everything there is a season. In the clip there are several realised recordings to give one a flavour of the music and the themes being used.
We are in the process of negotiating a very special premiere performance of the work for next Summer.
Joanna is still working on the piece, and we can’t wait to see finished copies of A Season to Sing in December of this year.’
'A Season to Sing' by Joanna Forbes L'Estrange - a choral re-imagining of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons In conversation with the composer about her new 40-minute choral work A Season to Sing, composed to mark the 300th anniversary in 2025 of the publication of ...
David has started looking through to decide what to edit and use from the Counterpoint Farewell Concert, recorded on 20th June, 2015 in Buckfast Abbey. I had completely forgotten that the concert had been recorded, and came across it when searching back to see the numerous concerts the choir had sung with James Bowman between 2002 and 2015.
I am in the process of editing-out several little vignettes of the performance from James that mean so much to me. From the majesty of Handel’s Pena tiranna, to the ageless beauty of Purcell’s Evening Hymn; from the joyous sparring in Sound the trumpet to the gentle pleading of Father in Heaven from Judas Maccabaeus, his music making with Counterpoint was always touching the sublime.
James, amazingly, was 74 at the time of this following little snippet, and he was still filling the church with the beautiful colour and timbre of his glorious voice. We both loved the simplicity and directness of Drop, drop slow tears, agreeing that a piece as perfect as this is just as poignant as the best from Handel or Bach. James was originally going to sing the three verses accompanied by the baroque organ, but I thought it would be fitting, as it was our last concert together, for the choir to gently accompany the last verse, loo-ing the accompaniment!
05/25/2022
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
Click here to claim your Sponsored Listing.
