VOCES8

Eight voices

VOCES8 was founded in 2003 and regrouped in 2005 by the brothers Paul and Barnaby Smith, both former Westminster Abbey choristers; Wikipedia gives both years. The voicing was historically two sopranos, two countertenors, two tenors, a baritone and a bass, and by 2018 one countertenor was replaced by a female alto. They sing early English and European Renaissance music, folk, jazz and pop, much of it in their own arrangements. The VOCES8 Foundation, set up in 2006 by the Smiths, is based at the VOCES8 Centre in St Anne and St Agnes Church in the City of London, and launched the VOCES8 Scholars programme in 2015.

Their records include Where I Sleep and Eventide (2014, Decca), Lux (2015), Equinox (2018), Enchanted Isle (2019), the four After Silence EPs (2020), Infinity (2021, Decca), Nightfall (2024) and Twenty (2025). Collaborations include Jacob Collier's Home Is (2018), Christopher Tin's The Lost Birds (2022, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra), Eric Whitacre's Home (2023) and Paul Simon's Seven Psalms (2023). The group's site says The Lost Birds was Grammy-nominated in 2023 and that Revolutions, with Paul Smith, won the Opus Klassik choral album of the year in 2026.

In 2020 they launched the Digital Academy and the LIVE From London online festival in response to COVID-19; the site counts twelve digital festivals, over 150 concerts and over 250,000 tickets. The Foundation won the 2020 Classic FM Public Choice Award, and the group won Limelight's 2021 International Artist of the Year: People's Choice. They played a 20th anniversary concert at the Barbican on June 8, 2025 with the Scholars, former members and the BBC Singers. Daniel Hathaway called them a splendid British double quartet with masterful transparency in Byrd, reviewing a 2016 Cleveland concert.