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The first week of February is already bringing a ray of light to our discographic landscape. The British VOCES8 ensemble released its second album at Decca Classics. Thus, we are connected to the news, once the announcement of this wholly exceptional release is made, which continues, actually confirms the initial impression this ensemble has made. The previous album released by the VOCES8 ensemble - Eventide received superlative reviews from the music critics; as the Lux album is receiving for its volatile sonorities now. We are offered an extensive stylistic palette in a meditative atmosphere - from the music of the Renaissance to the contemporary one, exceeding the boundaries of the academic speech. We are talking about songs, such as, Teardrop, Massive Attack or The Luckiest, by Ben Scott Folds - a song from the soundtrack of the About Time film, which was directed by Richard Curtis.

We are acquainting ourselves with names belonging to the present-day musical landscape, with extremely valuable composers of choral music - the Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo, the Latvians Eriks Esenwalds and Rihards Dubra, the Englishmen Patrick Hawes and Will Tod, and the Welshman Paul Mealor; Morten Lauridsen from the USA, along with the renowned John Tavener, Sir Edward Elgar, Serghei Rachmaninoff and, if we go even deeper down the thread of history - Greogorio Allegri, with his translucent Miserere, or Thomas Tallis. The works the VOCES8 ensemble offers are accessible to the public (we are talking about the contemporary pieces), have seraphic accents, evoke a journey of spiritual nature - an eternally-bright-in-its-essence sonority and perfect in harmony. The rhythm is more often than not static, suggesting a meditative plane, while the voices' perfect consonance amplifies the qualities I have already enumerated.

The whole world sighed when the Hilliard ensemble stopped giving concerts. Their last performance took place at the Wigmore Hall, on 20^th December, 2014. What we can say with certainty is that their place did not remain empty, after the arrival to the world of music of this newly-formed VOCES8 ensemble - its members are British and their singing style isalso à capella, but it has eight members and each one of them is very unique: only two female voices - sopranos, alongside two countertenors, two tenors, a baritone and a bass. The ensemble was founded in 2005 and it is known not only for its exceptional performances on the stages of specialized festivals, and of the European, American, Canadian, and Far Eastern concert halls. This, added to the fact that the ensemble partook in an ample educational programme promoting choral music in the European music schools, the countless awards and their seven other albums, recorded before the eight voices of the ensemble became artistically represented by Decca Classics, which means that new horizons are opening for choral music.

This entire ensemble of harmonies, where we discover, first and foremost, the availability for a contemporary discourse, which moves to an universe of consonances, has its special place in the Vote for the Best Classical Album of 2015 Radio Romania Music campaign.