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Sami Yusuf's alternately lush and intimate, cosmopolitan songs reflect a music education steeped in both Western and Middle Eastern classical music and encompassing influences ranging from flamenco to Sufi music and U.K. contemporary pop. Of Azerbaijani descent and raised in England, he emerged in the mid-2000s with albums like the devotional Al-Mu'allim (2005) and Without You (2009) -- both hits in the Middle East -- while gaining a reputation for stirring live performances. Yusuf's output in the 2010s was highlighted by 2014's intimate The Centre, 2015's Songs of the Way, and 2018's SAMi EP, whose more contemporary production palette was a surprise. With his recordings increasingly favoring live material thereafter, he released albums including When Paths Meet: Live at Holland Festival and When Paths Meet, Vol. 2 (from Paris) in the early 2020s.

Born to Azerbaijani parents in 1980, Sami Yusuf was raised in London, England, where he studied by both Western and Middle Eastern classical music from an early age. Singing and playing multiple instruments as well as speaking multiple languages growing up, he went on to study composition at the Royal Academy and at Salford University, and compose music informed by styles as wide-ranging as Persian classical, qawwali, and flamenco. In 2005, he was featured on Mesut Kurtis' album Ṣalawāt for Muslim label Awakening Records, which released his own debut, Al-Mu'allim, as well as the follow-up, My Ummah, before the end of the year. Al Mu'allim proved a breakthrough in the Middle East, where the title track topped charts in Egypt and Turkey and paved the way for the broader success of My Ummah. Yusuf appeared on the soundtrack for the film The Kite Runner in 2007, and 2009's English-language Without You took on more Western adult contemporary sound while still incorporating Eastern influences. Yusuf claimed the latter album was released without his permission, and Awakening issued the concert album Sami Yusuf Live before they parted ways.

Yusuf established the label ETM International for the release 2010's Wherever You Are, which mixed contemporary singer/songwriter pop with more orchestral and percussive fare alongside themes of love and tolerance. His fourth official album, 2012's Salaam, went platinum in Southeast Asia within months of its December release. It included songs in support of the sufferers of recent natural disasters. Continuing a spiritual and compassionate vein, and still incorporating Western and Eastern modes and timbres, The Centre arrived on Andante Records in September of 2014. That year, Yusuf was named United Nations Global Ambassador for the World Food Programme.

With lyrics taken from poet and philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the mostly English-language Songs of the Way appeared on Andante and Dubai-based Music Box International in early 2015. His seventh album, Barakah, followed on Andante in early 2016. That year brought the release Yusuf concert albums from shows at London's Phoenix Theatre and at the Dubai Opera.

Contemporary production touches marked a shift in sound on the EP SAMi, released in December of 2018. He then paid tribute to his heritage with 2019's Azerbaijan: A Timeless Presence, which captured a performance in Baku on all Azerbaijani instruments (except for the piano). When the COVID-19 pandemic forced him off the road, Yusuf issued The House Concert from his home studio in May 2020. Combining eight original songs and four new arrangements of previously released material, the lushly arranged live album Beyond the Stars saw release in late 2022. Another live set, When Paths Meet: Live at the Holland Festival, came out in early 2023. The brief, six-song When Paths Meet, Vol. 2, live from Paris (including "Meditations on Musette by Couperin") followed in early 2024. ~ Marcy Donelson

Cappella Amsterdam is a Dutch choir that has specialized in both early and contemporary music, experimenting with vocal techniques appropriate to each of these repertories. The group is noted for its distinctive vocal blend, which has attracted a variety of contemporary composers.

The choir is one of the more durable ensembles on the Dutch scene, having been founded in 1970. Its first director was Jan Boeke; its music director as of the mid-2020s is Daniel Reuss, who was appointed in 1990 and transformed the choir into a professional ensemble. The 25 members of Cappella Amsterdam emphasize Dutch repertory from both the Renaissance and modern eras; music by such composers as Sweelinck, Lassus, Ton de Leeuw, Robert Heppener, and Klaas de Vries is frequently performed. The choir maintains a busy schedule of concerts around the Netherlands and beyond and has appeared at the Utrecht Early Music Festival, the Holland Festival, and the Rheingau Musik Festival. Cappella Amsterdam collaborates often with both instrumental and operatic ensembles. The choir made its recording debut on the Hyperion label in 1997 with a recording of Ivan Moody's Passion and Resurrection and has since released albums on Challenge Classics, Harmonia Mundi, and Glossa (a pair of Bach recordings with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century).

The group has participated in productions of Rameau's Les Indes galantes with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century under Frans Brüggen and of Tan Dun's opera Marco Polo. The choir's instrumental collaborators have included early music groups, traditional orchestral ensembles, and modern groups: the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, the Akademie für alte Musik Berlin, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Ensemble Intercontemporain; it has also joined with the SWR Vocal Ensemble and the RIAS Kammerchor from Germany. Noted for its homogenous vocal blend, Cappella Amsterdam has recorded for prestigious labels that emphasize strong engineering. Cappella Amsterdam recorded Arvo Pärt's Kanon Pokajanen for Harmonia Mundi in 2016 and returned to Glossa the following year, again teamed with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century for a historically informed reading of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis in D major, Op. 123, and in 2019, it departed again from the early music - contemporary duality with a recording of Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem. The group remained active through the COVID-19 pandemic, releasing the album Roland de Lassus: Inferno on Harmonia Mundi in 2020 and then moving to Channel Classics for the Renaissance-contemporary program In Umbra Mortis in 2021, David Lang: the writings (based on Hebrew biblical texts) in 2022, and a recording of Alfred Schnittke's Psalms of Repentance in 2023. By that time, the group's recording catalog comprised more than 20 choice releases. ~ James Manheim