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VOCES8 on performance beyond the pandemic / Classical-Music.uk

Posted: October 17, 2022

Classical-Music.uk explores how the indefinable vocal ensemble have carved their own niche in an online environment flooded with content

Dale Wills writes…..VOCES8 is a group which defies classification. A foundation, education hub, record label, production house, promotor, accelerator and more; it might be easier to define VOCES8 by what they don’t do. The centrepiece of this model of a twenty-first century arts organisation remains, however, the irreproachable choral virtuosi making up the heart of this unique community. Their extensive discography, range of collaborators, and imaginative programming all seem to quietly beg the question, ‘why would we want to be in a category?’

Like the rest of the performing world, VOCES8 were abruptly shut down on 23 March 2020 by the encroaching global pandemic. Over lockdown, however, VOCES8 continued their tradition of defying classification with the launch of their digital performance series LIVE from London. In a sea of online offerings, LIVE from London was marked out by immaculate production values; seamlessly streaming high quality audio together with a multi-camera video feed. The initial performances gave rise to a whole online festival.

Co-founders and brothers Paul and Barnaby Smith describe their journey towards ‘colonising the digital performance space’. Their approach was underpinned by impressive technical standards, providing recording quality audio feeds, judiciously lit and framed camera feeds, all supported by a seamless access process. The other significant difference with VOCES8’s digital festival was the collaborative nature of the programming.

The visual aspects of the performance are just as important – YouTube has become the new CD
Paul describes the planning as ‘a community coming together - which rarely happens in this industry.’ LIVE from London has welcomed many other artists, including I Fagiolini, The Sixteen and Stile Antico as well as instrumental ensembles. ‘Everyone has been invested in whole process of building a new interface with the audience. For us, it has meant that we could create employment and give a platform to over five hundred musicians (rather than the usual thirteen!)’.

The engine for this innovation has also been drawn from VOCES8’s impressively multitalented ranks. Co-founder Barney started recording the ensemble five years before lockdown, with some impressive results. He now coordinates the playout for LIVE from London, with an impressive ten-camera set-up being synchronised with a multitrack sound capture which is mixed down into a lossless stereo file and played out in real-time – a feat many more sizable broadcasters would quail at. Barney recalls only one time this incredible technical wizardry tripped up; on the first ever broadcast, when a nearby building was struck by lightning, knocking out the high speed zero downtime internet line!

Since 2015, VOCES8 has been engaging its broad and equally uncategorisable audience in the digital space. The group has been producing around fifteen videos a year, showcasing their incredible work across a vast array of platforms. As Paul points out, five years' worth of live audiences have interacted with the panoply of performers in the limited time the digital content has been posted.

The group’s latest project, a reimagining of Vaughan Williams’ perennial Lark Ascending for Jack Liebeck’s transcendent solo violin, orchestra and chorus comes as close to defining this group as anything; a love of music and an uncontained joy at sharing music making with their audience underpins everything VOCES8 does. Timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of RVW’s birth, and only months after the 100th anniversary of the premier of the Lark this recording skilfully translates the antiphony of the original string groups into an aching sigh of choral magic. The voices weave in and out of the solo violin line with a timbral contrast which only heightens the special magic of the original. I can’t help but feel RVW would approve!

PHOTO: ©Libby Percival

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