The Antioch Chamber Ensemble – Professional Choral Music

Widely regarded as one of the finest professional choral music ensembles in the United States, The Antioch Chamber Ensemble is currently celebrating its 14th season of exceptional music-making, having made its debut at the gala opening of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in 1997. Under the leadership of founding Artistic Director Joshua Copeland, the ensemble strives to present as diverse a program as possible of the world’s greatest choral literature, both sacred and secular, and has performed works ranging from Renaissance polyphony to contemporary masterpieces with a core group of ten to twelve of the New York metropolitan area’s finest singers. In 2008, Antioch was awarded first-place honors in the highly prestigious Tolosa International Choral Competition in Spain, establishing them among the top rank of professional choirs in the world. In recent seasons, Antioch has been called “stellar,” “flawless,” “an exceptional group,” and “a spectacular example of what a classical choir should sound like” by the national press.

Antioch’s past performance highlights include feature performances for Carnegie Hall’s Neighborhood Concert Series, the Trinity Wall Street “Noon-Day” Concert Series, the American Choral Directors Association Eastern National Conference and the Nautilus Music Festival in Nova Scotia. In the past  season, Antioch performed at the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, hailed by the New York Times as a “technological pleasure dome for the mind and senses.” The ensemble also premiered a piece by composer Bruce Adolphe at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of a special exhibition of works by the Renaissance painter Agnolo Bronzino in March, and returned to the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina for their ninth consecutive performance in the Choral Artists Series in May. In July, Antioch appeared at the Musique en Morvan Festival and the Festival des Choeurs Laureats in France.

Antioch’s first full-length recording, Winter Songs, featuring the Mid-Winter Songs by contemporary American composer Morten Lauridsen, was released in December of 2003 to wide-spread acclaim. The ensemble’s second CD, The Passing of the Year, was released by MSR Classics in May, 2010.