Published on ClevelandClassical.com October 6, 2014 - by Nicholas Jones

Historians of the arts sometimes ask:  did England have a Baroque? Northern, chilly, and Protestant, could the British match the splendid Counter-Reformation emotionality of Catholic Rome? The answer arguably lies in three artists of the late seventeenth century, all of them working primarily in London: Christopher Wren (St. Paul's Cathedral - noble, symmetrical, and infinitely baffling); John Milton (Paradise Lost - magnificent, touching, radically modern); and Henry Purcell - whose music is moving, challenging, surprising, and constantly creative ...

Published on ClevelandClassical.com June 9, 2014 - by Timothy Robson

Contrapunctus, a professional choral group just finishing its first season, gave an unusual program of music for high voices (sopranos, altos, countertenors) at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist on Friday, June 6th. British countertenor and conductor David Acres, music director of Contrapunctus, planned an audacious program of 22 works ....

Published on ClevelandClassical.com March 10, 2014 - by Daniel Hathaway

The chamber choir formerly known as Cantores made its debut under the new name of Contrapunctus at Trinity Cathedral on Sunday afternoon, March 2, with an historically themed concert, “The Life and Times of Mary, Queen of Scots, 1542-1587.” ...

Published on ClevelandClassical.com May 28, 2015 - by Daniel Hathaway

British countertenor David Acres will lead the professional singers of Contrapunctus Early Music in a free program of vocal music by Spanish composers of the 13th to 17th centuries on Sunday, May 31 at 3:00 pm in Mary Queen of Peace Church on Pearl Road in Old Brooklyn. “We hope people will come and enjoy music they’ve never heard before,” Acres said in a telephone conversation...

Published on ClevelandClassical.com October 2, 2014 - by Daniel Hathaway

After the “distracted times” of the English Civil War, as Thomas Tompkins subtitled his Sad Pavane, Henry Purcell restored British music to something approaching its former glory during his brief but prolific lifetime. Born in 1659 close to Westminster Abbey, where he later served as organist (his teacher John Blow stepped down in his favor) Purcell went on to triumph as a composer who wrote equally striking and dramatic music for the church and the theater...

Don’t be surprised if the second concert by Cleveland’s new choral ensemble, Contrapunctus, at St. John’s Cathedral in downtown Cleveland on Friday, June 6 at 7:30pm, is missing a few voice parts — tenor and basses, in fact. British countertenor David Acres, who founded and conducts the ensemble, planned it that way...

Published on clevelandclassical.com February 27, 2014 - by Daniel Hathaway

In 2004, Barbara Margolis gathered five of her professional singer colleagues and launched the one-on-a-part vocal ensemble Cantores Ecclesiae to explore church music written before 1650. By 2011, the group — now called Cantores Cleveland — had expanded into a non-profit organization, increased its numbers and embarked on the new mission ...