Album Notes

Founded in 2002 by Artistic Director Patrick Dupré Quigley, the chamber choir Seraphic Fire has garnered critical acclaim both locally and nationally. Lauded by the Miami Herald as \"one of the best choirs anywhere,\" Seraphic Fire brings together talented young singers from across the country for cutting-edge concerts of rarely heard classical music. The group continues to build on their reputation for giving dynamic performances. Artistic Director Quigley was recently featured in Ocean Drive Magazine, which credited the young ensemble with \"putting a fresh, hip face on classical music.\"

Seraphic Fire began as a little-known local treasure specializing in early and new music. Critically acclaimed for their \"smart, polished, historically-informed\" (South Florida Sun-Sentinel) concerts, they quickly rose to the top ranks of Miami\'s music scene. Global recognition came quickly when in 2004 they were invited to record with international pop-star Shakira on a track for her album Oral Fixation II, which ultimately went Platinum. In 2005, Seraphic Fire was contacted by Miami\'s renowned New World Symphony to collaborate on a concert featuring works by Bach and Vivaldi. They join the symphony again in 2008 in a performance of Schubert\'s Mass in E-flat, under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. In December of 2007, Seraphic Fire makes its debut at the Knight Concert Hall at Miami\'s Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, South Florida\'s premier concert venue. In April of 2008, Seraphic Fire will make its northeastern United States debut, with concerts in New York, New Haven, and Syracuse.

Seraphic Fire has expanded in other ways as well. Its repertoire now includes classical and contemporary, sacred and secular. Over the past three seasons Seraphic Fire has commissioned and premiered works by up-and-coming young composers including Matthew Barnson, Sydney Guillaume, and Alvaro Bermudez. In 2005, Seraphic Fire commissioned a 50-minute work from 28 year-old composer Shawn Crouch, The Road from Hiroshima: A Requiem, which was subsequently nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. In recognition of their efforts to promote the creation of and to premier new works, ASCAP awarded to Seraphic Fire the ASCAP/Chorus America/Alice Parker award for adventurous programming in 2006. The international classical music magazine, Gramophone, called Seraphic Fire \"one of the most exciting and unexpected developments on the local scene,\" also saying that \"no group programmes more adventurously.\" Recent concerts have included \"Sephardic Fire: a program of Sephardic folk music and new works by Jewish composers\", \"Sway: an evening of compositions by Latin-American and Haitian-American composers\", a concert version of Henry Purcell\'s opera Dido and Aeneas, and \"Amazing Grace: A Gospel and Bluegrass Journey.\"