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England's Brabant Ensemble specializes in sacred choral music of the middle 16th century, mostly from present-day Belgium and The Netherlands. Its name comes from the Duchy of Brabant, an incredibly fertile area of the Low Countries whose composers were in demand among Italy's powerful families, shaped European music continent-wide, and was the primary component in what is thought of today as "Renaissance choral music."

Yet, despite all the emphasis in music history books on the music of this region, ensembles addressing the repertory specifically have been scarce. Conductor Stephen Rice, a freelance choral director and a scholar investigating the work of Nicolas Gombert, noted this neglect and founded the Brabant Ensemble in Oxford in 1998. The ensemble cultivates a small-group sound but has not sung with one voice per part; two is common in their output. It is made up of adult men and women.

The group made its recording debut in 2004 with an album of music by the composer Clemens non Papa for the Signum label, but then moved to Hyperion and has remained with that label through 20 recordings and counting. A few have been of foreign composers influenced by the Netherlandish style, such as Cristóbal de Morales and, in a 2013 release, Palestrina. Other releases have involved music by figures hardly known even to Renaissance specialists beyond a few pieces. These have included Thomas Crecquillon, Pierre de Manchicourt, Dominique Phinot, and Pierre Moulu. Several of the Brabant Ensemble's albums have been nominated for Gramophone awards.

The Brabant Ensemble has toured widely, giving concerts in Spain, Switzerland, Germany, and Portugal, in addition to its musical home ground of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The group made its Wigmore Hall debut in 2016, a significant achievement for musicians who have made very specialized repertory come alive for general listeners. The group has also appeared at festivals, including the Festival de Lanvellec et Trégor, in Brittany, France, in 2017. The Brabant Ensemble remained busy through the COVID-19 pandemic, issuing an album of music by little-known Flemish composers Johannes Lupi and Lupus Hellinck in 2020, a collection of lesser-known motets and mass movements by Josquin Desprez in 2021, and a recording of Jean Mouton's Missa Faulte d'Argent in 2022. ~ James Manheim

In an age when professional musicians flung themselves from court to international court seeking the most lucrative salary and perquisites, Pierre de La Rue's temperament was marked more by loyalty and hard work. Unlike many of his contemporaries in the so-called "Josquin generation" of musicians, La Rue may never have followed the talent drain from the North to Italy, and once he had slowly worked his way up into one of the finest musical establishments in Europe, he stayed. This consummate professional musician, ordained to the deaconate, wrote copious amounts of music (30 or more masses, with at least two dozen motets and an equal number of chansons) while apparently caring for the poor in the name of Christ.

La Rue's birth in Tournai cannot be documented because of the destruction of that city's records in World War II, but his early positions of employment have been rediscovered. The earliest record calls him a tenor (adult) at St. Goedele in Brussels in 1469-1470, indicating a birthdate in the early 1450s. The tenor "Pieter vander straten" then proceeded to St. Jacob's in Ghent (during 1471 and 1472) and Onze Lieve Vrouw in Niewpoort (leaving by 1477). He is known to have worked at an unknown church in Cologne at some point, and may have spent some time between 1482 and 1485 at the Cathedral in Siena, Italy. The Italian employment, however, seems questionable on musical grounds, as few traces of Italian styles appear in his music, and no Italian manuscript sources from the time contain any pieces by him. In 1489, at any rate, La Rue began serving a confraternity in 's-Hertogenbosch, from which he would move in 1492 to his "tenured" position with the Hapsburg-Burgundian chapel.

Emperor Maximilian I took La Rue into the chapel he was rebuilding for his son Philip the Fair, Duke of Burgundy (1493-1506). He served Philip throughout his reign, then sang for Philip's widow Juana in Spain until 1508. After this time, La Rue remained in Hapsburg service, as court singer for Marguerite of Austria in Mechlin from 1508 till 1514 and then briefly for the future Emperor Charles V himself. During this service, he seems to have travelled somewhat, meeting Isaac, Févin, and probably Josquin on trips to Spain; Alexander Agricola sang with him in Philip's chapel from 1500-1506. He also continued composition apace; Marguerite held his music in especially high esteem, comissioning two elaborate manuscript volumes of his masses as well as including many of his chansons in her personal chansonniers. After a quarter century of Hapsburg service, La Rue retired to Courtrai in 1516, made his will later that year, and died in 1518. His epitaph lauds his musical service (erroneously read to include Hungary and Ireland), but also commemorates his virtue.

British choral conductor Stephen Rice is the founder and director of the Brabant Ensemble, a choral group specializing in sacred music of the middle 16th century. Rice has a large catalog of recordings in this field, has conducted oratorio and opera, and is also a widely published scholar.

Rice began his musical career as a choral scholar at King's College, Cambridge. He also studied at Oxford University, where he received a doctorate in 2004 after writing a dissertation on the five-part motets of composer Nicolas Gombert. By that time, Rice had already founded the Brabant Ensemble, a small choral group devoted to the choral music of the Flemish High Renaissance, and made it into a well-established group. That year, the Brabant Ensemble, with Rice conducting, made its debut on the Signum Classics label with a recording of music by Clemens non Papa. Two years later, Rice and the Ensemble moved to Hyperion for the album Thomas Crecquillon: Mort m'a privé. Rice has continued to record for Hyperion, issuing one or two albums almost annually through the early 2020s. He has remained active as a scholar, writing articles about Clemens non Papa, Cristóbal de Morales, and Josquin Desprez, among others.

Rice is also active in fields other than Renaissance choral music. From 2000 to 2005, he served as director of the New Chamber Opera Studio, and from 2003 to 2011, he was director of music at St. Mary Magdalen Church in Oxford, where he performed a variety of choral works. From 2008 to 2011, Rice held a three-year Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts, provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and located at the University of Southampton. With the Brabant Ensemble, he has toured countries across western Europe and as far afield as Slovenia, making his debut at London's Wigmore Hall in 2016. In 2022, Rice and the Brabant Ensemble released a recording of the Missa Faulte d'argent and motets by Jean Mouton; by that time, Rice's catalog comprised more than 20 albums. ~ James Manheim