Baroque Voices - A brief history of the first 30 years, 1994-2024…

Baroque Voices (BV), founded in June 1994 by Wellington-based soprano Pepe Becker, is a vocal consort which specialises in pre-Classical music written for ensembles with one voice to a part. Its size varies according to the particular demands of the repertoire for each concert or project. The group has a core of singers with considerable experience in both choral and solo performance, especially in the field of early music. Several of its members have studied, are currently studying, or are about to study, in Europe – the director, Pepe, studied singing with Jessica Cash in London and Baroque Singing with Marius van Altena at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, 1991-93.

The singers are all committed to using appropriate vocal techniques, ornaments and styles, based on what is known about the performance practices, resources and musical ideals of the era in which music was written. These principles are applied equally to the performance of contemporary music, for which BV is also highly acclaimed.

As at Sept 2024, the group has commissioned over 40 new works by NZ composers (several with assistance from Creative NZ) and has given the premiere performance of each of them in a series of concerts entitled “Alleluia: a newë work!”, juxtaposing Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque or 20th C works with the contemporary NZ ones, using similar texts and/or based on similar time-transcending themes such as love/loss, birth/death, transformation/renewal...

Baroque Voices was the core vocal group in the acclaimed Musica Sacra Concert Series which ran for ten years (2001-2010) at St Mary of the Angels under the direction of Robert Oliver, with the instrumental ensemble Academia Sanctae Mariae led by Gregory Squire. This series included a wide range of early music (12thC to 18thC) from Italy, France, England and Germany, with works that are usually performed by a larger choir (such as Bach cantatas and Purcell verse-anthems) sung one-voice-to-a-part, and culminated in 2010 with unique performances of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespro della Beata Vergine using period instruments and only 10 voices.

The following year, “The Full Monte” concert series took flight, after Pepe had the idea for BV to perform most, if not all, the Italian madrigali contained in Monteverdi’s nine volumes of innovative and highly emotive part-songs for voices (both unaccompanied and with continuo and/or other instruments) published throughout his lifetime. To date, the group has sung all of Books I-IV and most of Books V, VII and IX…

Over the past three decades, BV has collaborated with several choirs, orchestras and instrumentalists, notably: The Tudor Consort (of which Pepe was a founding member, 1986-91), as part of the Musica Sacra Concert Series; the Baroque Players, led by Peter Walls; Palliser Viols, directed by Robert Oliver; Nota Bene choir; Wellington Chamber Orchestra and St Peter’s Orchestra. Early keyboard specialist Douglas Mews has accompanied BV many times (on harpsichord, chamber organ, virginall, piano or organ) since 1994. Pianist Dan Poynton co-created and gave several North-Island performances of an extraordinary Machaut/Liszt programme with BV, 1999-2001.

Members of BV have also been engaged as an ensemble of soloists by various larger choirs (including Sacred Heart Cathedral Choir and the Bach Choir of Wellington, and Christchurch’s Jubilate Singers) to sing solo roles in well-known works such as Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespro della Beata Vergine, Allegri’s Miserere Mei Deus, Bach’s Mass in B Minor and several cantatas, and other Renaissance and Baroque works for choir, orchestra and soloists.

BV has toured twice for Chamber Music NZ and has given well over 100 concerts throughout New Zealand since its debut 30 years ago... Roll on the next 30 years of musicking!