· David Skinner and his vocal ensemble Alamire, have released the sheet music of the new edition of John Sheppard’s epic masterpiece Media vita in morte sumus with 100% of donations going to the NHS
· Alamire released this digital-only EP on 17 July and where it spent a week in the Top 10 of Apple Music’s Classical Chart
· The EP is released on Inventa Records, a specialist Early Music sub-label for Resonus Classics
Tudor composer John Sheppard wrote Media vita in morte sumus (In the midst of life we are in death) towards the end of his life, and himself died of the influenza epidemic that raged London in the 1550s.
Alamire, under the direction of David Skinner, has released a digital-only EP of a world premiere recording presenting this masterpiece as it was originally performed and as Sheppard himself would have heard it. Skinner worked with two other scholars – Jason Smart and Professor John Harper – to unpick how this piece would have been performed in a liturgical setting, and as a result, came up with a recording that varies hugely from all previous accounts of the work.
The sheet music of this new edition has been made available for download through Alamire’s website with 100 percent of the donations going to the NHS.
David Skinner, director of Alamire said: ‘We’ve decided to make the sheet music of this new edition available for free through our website, and all we ask that you donate what you can to our beloved NHS in these equally troubling times. 100 percent of donations will go to the NHS. Thank you!’
Alamire boasts some of the finest consort singers in the world under the directorship of David Skinner. Inspired by the great choral works of the medieval and early modern periods, the ensemble expands or contracts according to repertoire and often combines with instrumentalists, creating imaginative programmes to illustrate musical or historical themes. The ensemble was formed in 2005 by three friends and early music experts: David Skinner, Rob Macdonald and Steven Harrold.
Performing extensively throughout Europe and the USA, the consort recorded a number of award-winning CDs for Obsidian Records. In 2015 they received the coveted Gramophone Award (Early Music) for ‘The Spy’s Choirbook’, while ‘Anne Boleyn’s Songbook was nominated for a BBC Music Award, and was CD of the Year (Choral & Song) in Australia’s Limelight Magazine. ‘Thomas Tallis: Songs of Reformation’ highlighted new fascinating discoveries about a musical collaboration between the composer and Queen Katherine Parr, and was widely covered by the UK media including BBC Breakfast television. Alamire now records for the Inventa label, the first release being the polychoral works of the northern German composer Hieronymus Praetorius.