BREMF Consort of Voices (BCV)
BREMF Consort of Voices is an ensemble of solo and consort singers formed from semi-professional, student and experienced amateur singers.
James Elias - Director
Founded in by Deborah Roberts, BCV is dedicated to giving dramatic and exciting performances of music from the Renaissance and early Baroque. The ensemble gives several concerts each year at BREMF. It has taken part in music ranging from 15th-century a cappella polyphony to the spectacular 1589 Florentine Intermedi with renaissance orchestra, great Venetian works with The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble and Purcell with Emma Kirkby and the International Baroque Players.
In 2015 the group performed the 8-voice Vespers of nun composer Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s The Early Music Show. For the 2024 festival they will join Dutch ensemble Cappella Pratensis in a programme of 15th-century music by Dufay, Dunstable and Walter Frye.
How to join BCV
Singers are selected by audition, and should be good sight readers with clear, well-tuned voices. The size of the choir is flexible, depending on the repertoire, and singers are invited on a project by project basis. We always welcome student singers interested in building experience in singing an incredible range of fascinating and challenging music.
The choir is particularly keen to hear from first sopranos at the present time.
Apply by email giving details of experience to bcv@bremf.org.uk
“…here intensity came from the grinding dissonances and the way they ‘sigh’ downwards to their resolution, an effect that the choir under its director Deborah Roberts really savoured.”
The Daily Telegraph (concert at BREMF 2010 with Emma Kirkby and the International Baroque players, broadcast on BBC Radio 3)