VOCES8 on digital performance beyond the pandemic

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.

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.

©Libby Percival

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!

As a companion project, the group commissioned composer Christopher Tin to write The Lost Birds, an elegiac suite which joins VOCES8 and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a series of meditations on the loss of so many birds from our forests and urban landscapes.

The Lost Birds premiered in a live stream on 15 October, together with VOCES8 reimagined Lark, for which the choral text is drawn from the George Meredith poem which inspired the original composition. The programme will also include a new version of Eric Whitacre’s beloved Sleep, with new colours drawn out from the additional orchestra lines, and Caroline Shaw’s magical and the swallow, reuniting soloist Jack Liebeck with the choral forces.

VOCES8 have more exciting plans in the pipeline. Not content with releasing their third full length album in the space of a year, I spoke to co-founders Paul and Barnaby as they were packing to embark on a North American tour. Christmas will bring more hybrid-live and online performances in London. Paul and Barnaby seem to have an instinctive understanding of their audience, acknowledging the need we have as viewers to feel immersed in the performance experience; ‘the visual aspects of the performance are just as important – YouTube has become the new CD’.

This prolific digital enterprise started with lockdown; growing from two weeks of online community singing workshops, Sing Every Day into one hundred and ten straight days of online workshops. Future plans include collaborations with Eric Whitaker, and more unexpected and exciting artists. If this group is only limited by their imaginations, then it’s hard to imagine how far they can soar.

You can see VOCES8's innovative recording in action on the ensemble's recent live stream, The Lost Birds, available to watch on demand here.