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Britain's Voces8 are recognized for their elegant balance and range of color, including smooth harmonies that have been compared to the King's Singers. Their repertory ranges from early Renaissance choral-vocal music to Gershwin and contemporaries, sometimes within the same recording. Following success in competitions, they emerged with From Gibbons to Gershwin in 2007. Four albums later, they took on Brahms, Bruckner, Reger in 2011, and their Decca debut, Eventide, charted in the U.K. upon its release in 2013. While they had already released a Christmas album, Winter focused on winter-themed songs more so than holiday music in 2016, and over a dozen albums into their career, 2019's Enchanted Isle reimagined material originally written for film and television. The ensemble was featured on Christopher Tin's The Lost Birds in 2022.

Devising their name on the spur of the moment en route to a competition in Italy, Voces8 was formed in 2005 by ex-choristers of the Choir of Westminster Abbey. The singers took on professional status in 2007, the year they issued From Gibbons to Gershwin, which spanned Orlando Gibbons (b. 1583) and George Gershwin (b. 1898). Considered their official debut, Evensong arrived on their own label, VCM Records, in 2008. After signing with Signum Classics, they presented Aces High, a collection of pop songs and movie themes that included, among other songs, Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal and The Beach Boys' Good Vibrations. It arrived in early 2010 and was followed later the same year by Bach: Motets. In 2011, Voces8 released both Brahms, Reger, Bruckner and their first Christmas album, titled simply Christmas. A Choral Tapestry revisited composers such as Brahms, Reger, and Gibbons in 2012, and the following year brought A Purcell Collection, a collaboration with Les Inventions. In the meantime, the lineup-shifting group established a busy touring schedule with an international reach.

Voces8 moved to Decca in 2013, making their label debut with Eventide. It covered composers as diverse as film scorer John Williams, Benjamin Britten, and then-newcomer Ola Gjeilo. Marking their debut on the U.K. album chart, it reached number 59. That year, original member Paul Smith also published a textbook, The VOCES8 Method. The album Night Scapes: Choral Music for Reflective Moments followed a year later. Issued in 2015, Lux included works by Tavener and Elgar as well as singer/songwriter Ben Folds, and 2016's Winter saw them joined by artists including pianist Huw Watkins and violinist Mari Samuelsen. Still with Decca, Equinox arrived in 2018, and in 2019, they offered the soundtrack-themed Enchanted Isle. Voces8 has commissioned new works on several occasions; a new work by Jonathan Dove was premiered by the group in 2019. To mark its 15th anniversary in 2020, Voces8 issued the album After Silence; it was released in four parts, culminating in a full-scale double album. Voces8 released the meditation-oriented crossover album Infinity on Decca in 2021, and returned on their Voces8 label with the small vocal group Apollo5 in 2022 on the album Paul Smith: Renewal? That year, Voces8 was featured on Christopher Tin: The Lost Birds. ~ Marcy Donelson & James Manheim

Max Reger was an important composer whose artistic worth far surpasses his still generally meager representation on the concert stages and in recordings. In his teen years, he came under the disparate influences of Bach and Wagner, and eventually fused a style from these sources, adding his own unique and seemingly ubiquitous counterpoint, to fashion music that was both ahead of its time and inextricably bound to the past. His mature idiom melded Baroque structural ingredients with the opulent harmonic palette of the late Romantic period. His organ compositions include masterworks like the chorale fantasia Ein feste Burg is unser Gott, Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, and Fantasia and Fugue on B-A-C-H. His huge chamber music output, consisting of nine sonatas for violin and piano and many other works, is an important body of work.

Reger was born in Brand, Bavaria on March 19, 1873, and grew up in Weiden. He studied organ and violin with his father, and piano with his mother. At 11, he began studies with organist Adalbert Lindner. In 1888, Reger traveled to Bayreuth and heard performances of Wagner's Parsifal and Die Meistersinger. The experience had a lasting effect on him, the harmonies and sounds of the latter opera profoundly affecting his musical psyche. In 1890, he began studies in Wiesbaden with Hugo Riemann and soon produced his Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 1 (1890-1891).

Reger developed a friendship with composers Eugen d'Albert and Feruccio Busoni in the mid-1890s. During this time, he wrote several compositions for piano, including Lose Blätter (1894) and Aus der Jugendzeit (1895). After an unpleasant experience in the military that affected his physical and mental health, he returned to his parents' Weiden home to recuperate. During this period, he produced his Op. 27 chorale fantasia Ein Feste Burg is Unser Gott, and his Op. 29 Fantasy & Fugue in C minor. Reger also earned a reputation as a brilliant pianist at this time, playing many concerts of wide-ranging repertoire, including his own works.

In 1902 Reger married Elsa von Bercken. The Sinfonietta in A (1904-1905) set off a most unwelcome stir for the composer, placing him at odds with the more conservative musical circles in Munich, where he had settled in 1901. By 1907 Reger had decided that the hostile climate in Munich was not worth enduring any longer, and accepted a professorship at Leipzig University. His many students there included Szell, von Hoesslin, Joseph Haas, Schoeck, Kvapil, and Weinberger. His Violin Concerto (1907-1908) and the Symphonic Prologue to a Tragedy (1908) came during this period.

In 1911, Reger was appointed conductor of the Meiningen Court Orchestra by Duke George II. He continued appearing as a pianist and always found time to compose. In February, 1914, he suffered a breakdown from troubles in his Meiningen post and eventually resigned. By September 1914, he had finished Eight Sacred Songs and the Patriotic Overture for orchestra. In March 1915, the composer and his family settled in Jena, where he completed his Sonata No. 9 for violin and piano, declaring it his greatest work in the genre, and the first in his so-called "Jena style." Other important works came during his "Jena" period, including the Op. 131 chamber works for various string instruments (Op. 131a, Op. 131b, Op. 131c, Op. 131d). His concert schedule took him to Holland in May, 1916, where he died of a heart attack.

Composer Caroline Shaw emphatically announced her arrival onto the classical music scene when she became the youngest-ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize for composition. She has written for several high-profile artists and ensembles, plays violin and sings with several ensembles, and has helped produce albums by artists beyond the classical sphere. In 2024, Shaw teamed with Sō Percussion to issue the album Rectangles and Circumstance.

Shaw was born on August 1, 1982, in Greenville, North Carolina. She began playing violin at two years old, with her mother as her teacher, and she began composing at ten, though the violin was her focus. She attended Rice University for her bachelor's degree, followed by Yale University for her master's degree, both in violin performance. She went on for further studies at Princeton University in the Ph.D. program for composition. While still in the program at Princeton, Shaw's composition Partita for 8 Voices (2009-2011) earned the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for composition, making Shaw the youngest composer to earn the prize. Written for the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, of which Shaw is a member, it was part of the group's Grammy Award-winning self-titled debut release in 2012.

Among the performers she's been commissioned by are Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, The Crossing, and Anne Sofie von Otter. Shaw wrote her Cant voi l'aube (2016) for von Otter, and she was subsequently commissioned by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra to write another work for von Otter, which became Shaw's Three Songs set (2016-2018). Shaw has also composed film music, including the scores for To Keep the Light (2016) and Madeline's Madeline (2018). A 2019 release of her works for string quartet by the Attacca Quartet, Orange, won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance. She performs on the violin with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble and regularly works with other groups, including Alarm Will Sound. Shaw has regularly teamed with the Sō Percussion group, whom she met and studied with at Princeton; together, they issued the album Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part in 2021. The following year, Shaw and the Attacca Quartet released the album Evergreen, containing five works for string quartet and two for voice and string quartet, with Shaw on vocals. In 2024, once more with Sō Percussion, she issued the album Rectangles and Circumstance on the Nonesuch label, the home of most of her recording activities.

Along with performing and composing, Shaw has worked with several prominent artists from the pop world, including Kanye West (The Life of Pablo and Ye), Nas (Nasir), and the National. She teaches at New York University, is a creative associate at the Juilliard School of Music, and has held residencies at Dumbarton Oaks and the Banff Centre, among others. ~ Keith Finke