Stile Antico is a young chamber choir that is rapidly attracting attention for the quality of its singing and its unique style of performance, working without a conductor. It was a finalist in the 2005 Early Music Network International Young Artists’ Competition in York, winning the Audience Prize, and it was subsequently signed up by the Harmonia Mundi label; its first CD, Music for Compline, won the prestigious Diapason d’Or and Choc du Monde de la Musique awards. Recent activities have included a European tour, a residence at Dartington’s International Summer School and an appearance with Sting at the 2007 Classical BRIT Awards at the Royal Albert Hall.

In this programme Stile Antico explores the connections between the Biblical Song of Solomon and Marian devotion in the sixteenth century. Sumptuous motets by the great Continental Renaissance composers, including Palestrina, Victoria, Gombert, Guerrero, Lassus and Clemens non Papa, are contrasted with the great plain song hymns ‘Regina coeli’, ‘Alma redemptoris mater’, ‘Salve regina’ and ‘Ave regina coelorum’.

‘The singing is staggeringly beautiful, the balance meticulous’—Sunday Times
‘Alphas all round—Stile Antico has a great future’—Oxford Times