This is a vocal octet founded in 2021 and headquartered in North Yorkshire. Their name comes from the 12th Century Cistercian abbey (now in ruins) found not far from Ripon, a small city (with a wonderful cathedral) that serves as the ensemble’s home base. All of these people are bona fide soloists, so there’s no hooting from the tenors or choirboy impressions from the sopranos. You might hear an individual voice or 2 pop out from the rest in midcrescendo, but the sound they create is lovely and very flattering to the musical bouquet they have presented us here. Their Lauridsen is beautiful, and they really get inside the shifting emotions of Jonathan Dove’s Passing of the Year, a set of 7 songs that turn seasonal poems by Blake, Dickinson, Nashe, Peele, and Tennyson into song. From Thomas Nashe’s premonitions of death (`Adieu! Farewell earth’s bliss’), to Emily Dickinson’s feisty evocation of a summer’s joy (`Answer July’), to Lord Tennyson’s exuberant celebration of a new year (“Ring out, wild bells”), it’s a fine set, handsomely sung and recorded. 

I think you’ll also enjoy `Vasara’ (Summer) by the Lithuanian composer Onute Narabutaita (b 1956) who turns a run through the forest into a musical celebration of nature’s sounds. (If you’ve ever tweeted your way through Clement Janequin’s `Chants des Oiseaux’ you’ll have a special appreciation for this modern equivalent!) The notes tell us that the group often includes solo performances at their concerts, and there are 3 of them here; the piano version of Rachmaninoff’s `Lilacs’, a lovely Poulenc song called `Fleurs’, and the opening section of `Make Our Garden Grow’ from Bernstein’s Candide. The pianist, mezzo, and tenor keep the hits coming. Maestro Gower-Smith has founded quite a group, and I look forward to hearing them again.

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