A4 News

In This Issue

Secret Voices: Music from The Las Huelgas Codex, c. 1300

Calling All Dawns

The Cherry Tree

American Angels and Gloryland sheet music now available!

Gloryland - A4's recording of American Favorites is a long-running hit

American Angels is a #1 smash hit

Anonymous 4 - MP3 Downloads Available

Jacqui has a Web Site

News From Ruth

Voices of Light Now Available on Video & DVD

Secret Voices: Music from The Las Huelgas Codex, c. 1300

Anonymous 4's newest program is a return to the heart of their favorite century, and to a repertoire that proved to one and all that medieval women could, and did, sing the most complex polyphony in the Gothic era.

This varied repertoire of 13th-century polyphony and sacred Latin song was collected for a convent of noble and aristocratic women, who were clearly used to having their own way. In spite of a rule forbidding the singing of polyphony by the women of their order, these sophisticated ladies sang the most beautiful, advanced and demanding music from all over Europe in the 13th century.

There are elegant French love motets here, like Claustrum pudicicie/Virgo viget/[FLOS FILIUS], which were retrofitted with holy words for the sisters to sing. There are conductus, like Mater patris et filia, Ave maris stella and Parens patris natique, with unpredictable rhythms and lively hockets. There are also heartfelt laments, like O monialis conscio, written on the death of a beloved member of the sisterhood. The sisters had written or collected for them, virtuoso polyphony for the daily Mass as well, and we include several of these: the troped Kyrie Rex virginum and Gloria Spiritus et alme. We also get a glimpse into the musical dedication of the convent in a unique "solfeggio" exercise, Fa Fa Mi / Ut Re Mi, for the sister's music lessons, where they practiced singing their hexachords under the watchful ear of the music mistress.

The repertoire of the Las Huelgas manuscript provides the proof that Anonymous 4, far from singing "men's music," are following in the footsteps of their much-older sisters who had no difficulty (except from their male monastic superiors) in finding and performing the most virtuosic, avant-garde polyphonic music of their time. It's time now for Anonymous 4 to bring them to life again.

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We'll be touring with Secret Voices in October 2009, prior to recording it for harmonia mundi usa in November. Check our concert listings to find a performance near you.

Calling All Dawns

This past summer, the members of Anonymous 4 were very excited to be asked to participate in an ambitious recording project, Calling All Dawns. It consists of twelve songs in twelve different languages, all dealing with the themes of life, death and rebirth. Song cycle composer Christopher Tin is best known for his award-winning music for the video game Civilization IV, the title song of which, Baba Yetu, is featured on the CD.

Anonymous 4 recorded a beautiful Irish lament, Caoineadh for Christopher, with our own Irish girl Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek singing the solo, and we are joined by many distinguished artists, including Frederica Von Stade and the Soweto Gospel Choir, performing Christopher's other songs.

To hear sound clips, get more information, and to order the CD, please visit Christopher's website Christopher Tin

The Cherry Tree

Anonymous 4's newest program, The Cherry Tree, is named for the miracle ballad of Joseph and Mary, the earliest text of which survives from a Coventry Play. of c. 1400 The Cherry Tree story persisted in many forms, making its way into medieval British carols of the mid-15th century, and into British and American traditional ballads.

In The Cherry Tree, we present medieval and traditional versions of the story, like Mervele noght iosep and As I lay up on a nyght, along with other much-loved medieval carols, like Nowell synge we, Make we joye, Synge we to this mery cumpane, and Hail Mary. We also perform the monophonic 15th-century ballad carols Newell: Tydings trew, and Lullay my child: This ender nithgt, along with the well-known lullaby carol of the Nuns of Chester, Qui creavit celum. Along with these, we also sing traditional American Christmas songs with British roots -- A Virgin Unspotted, The Shepherd's Star, Star in the East and William Billings' joyous 4-part fuging tune Bethlehem.

We premiered The Cherry Tree in December 2008 and look forward to touring with it during the 2009 holiday season (see concert listings). We're recording it for a Fall 2010 release on harmonia mundi usa.

American Angels and Gloryland sheet music now available!

ANONYMOUS 4 MUSIC is very pleased to announce that the wonderful organization, www.a-

cappella.com, has partnered with Hal Leonard, Inc. to publish octavo collections of the music from our chart-topping cd American Angels (hmu 907326)). We've had numerous requests for sheet music from American Angels, and now we're happy to say that it is available.

Three of the five octavo editions appeared in April 2007. The remaining two should be available by early summer 2007. You can see and purchase these editions at http://www.a-cappella.com/category/anonymous_4

AND NOW, music from our Gloryland cd is available for download purchase at a-cappella.com as well.

In the very near future, you'll be able to purchase for instant download some of our greatest medieval hits as well, including our editions of the chants of Hildegard von Bingen. Octavo editions selected medieval pieces from earthsongs are also available through a-cappella.com. Stay tuned - more to come!

Gloryland - A4's recording of American Favorites is a long-running hit

When we first began to work on the music for our American Angels recording, we had been singing together for many years; but a couple of us were new to singing Anglo-American spiritual vocal music. It wasn't long before we were all deeply in love with the tunes we had chosen; and soon it became clear that our concert-going and CD-listening audience had fallen in love with them, as well. We simply had to sing more American tunes.

Because of that, and because of the great success of American Angels (80+ weeks on the Billboard Classical Top 25 and counting . . . ) we returned to the studio in October 2005 for another recording of American music.

Gloryland is the diary of our second pilgrimage to the roots of Anglo-American vocal music. The journey has led us to more of the most beautiful religious ballads, folk songs, folk hymns, and gospel songs ever to be found. Each sung poem contains a world of meaning in itself: together they tell a story of love and loss, hope and redemption.

Our versions of the religious ballads and folk songs on this program follow the performances of traditional singers from the Ozark and the Appalachian mountains. We sing shape note tunes in the spare three-part harmonizations in which they first appear in the nineteenth-century tunebooks. Similarly, we have chosen to perform two gospel songs as they were originally set by their composers. The other hymns and gospel songs on Gloryland were arranged by members of Anonymous 4.

For this recording, we collaborated with two very wonderful musicians: Darol Anger (fiddle, guitar, mandocello) and Mike Marshall (mandolin, mandocello, guitar). Darol and Mike are super-instrumentalists who slip seamlessly over the borders of bluegrass, newgrass, classical and jazz.

Click here for track list, sound clips and purchase info

American Angels is a #1 smash hit

It was a couple of years ago that we thought we'd explore some of the great musical heritage of our own country, and the idea of American Angels began to take shape. It ended up being one of our all-time favorite projects, and it sounds like a lot of people agree with us.

American Angels spent almost a year on the Billboard Classical Top Fifteen list since its release in March '04, peaking at #1.

Online giant Amazon.com lists American Angels among its "Top 100 Overall Customers' Favorites" (which includes all categories, including pop and rock), and in the "Top 10 Customer Favorites in Opera & Vocal" for 2004.

The reviews have been glowing (we blush to say) and, more important, they come from a wide range of reviewers -- classical, of course, but also folk, country and pop outlets.

Several of these reviews appear on our American Angels discography page, along with a tracklist, notes and soundclips.

Anonymous 4 - MP3 Downloads Available

Anonymous 4's albums are now available for purchase on Apple's iTunes as well as on Amazon MP3 Downloads and Rhapsody.com. You can purchase entire CDs, or individual tracks.

Jacqui has a Web Site

Jacqui now has a presence on the Web. Check out her beautiful web site for concert info and more.

News From Ruth

Ruth has just released two new solo cds: Light and Shadow: Chants, Prayers and Improvisations and Harpmodes: Journey for Voice and Harp. Both are available for purchase at her website www.ruthcunningham.com/recordings or at cdbaby.com

Ruth and collaborator Ana Hernandez have created a new CD, "HARC Inside Chants." The CD includes settings of short sacred chants (close to the style of Indian kirtan) from the Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Jewish traditions. In many of the pieces traditional and newly composed chants serve as ground for improvised counterpoint. Accompanied by piano, medieval harp, tongue drum, flute, and guitar, "HARC: Inside Chants" is a meditative experience crafted to move the heart to its innate state of openness, compassion and peace. This cd is available at cd baby and can also be downloaded from itunes.

Ruth's CD with harpist Diana Stork, Sacred Light, is an album of healing music. Sacred Light is a collection of original compositions of musical prayers and visionary improvisations. Visit the At Peace Music site to read more about Sacred Light and listen to sound clips or visit Amazon.com to purchase a copy.

Voices of Light Now Available on Video & DVD

Anonymous 4 has been involved in some intriguing projects and collaborations, but there is really nothing like Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light, an oratorio written to accompany the 1928 classic silent film, "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (dir. Carl Dreyer). The combination of image, text and music is powerful, and we've never known it to leave an audience anything other than deeply moved.

Einhorn's music has been available on CD (featuring A4) from Sony since 1997, but for the complete experience, you'd have to catch a live performance. Now, at last, the film and Voices of Light are available together. The DVD version even contains additional material not available on the CD or video. Click here for ordering info.