Julien Stpierre wrote:

>Hello again, The 'beginner' writing again ;).  I thank all of you for
>your responses to my previous question.  After having done quite a bit
>more looking and experimenting, I think I may have found something that I
>really enjoy.  I am not sure how to refer to it other than 'chamber choir'.
>
>I was just wondering anyone knows about it; specifically what to look for.
>Hopefully someone has some idea of what I am talking about ;).

Well, Julien, since I am the artistic director of a professional chamber
choir, maybe I can help.  A chamber choir seldom exceeds 24 voices (that
seems to be the magic number) but can sometimes be larger.  The distinction
is that chamber choirs do not perform the big choral and orchestral
repertoire (such as the Verdi Requiem, for example), but rather music that
was written specifically for a choir.  There are dozens of fine chamber
choirs in the world, and here's a list of my favorites:

Kammerchor Stuttgart under Frieder Bernius
Gaechinger Kantorei under Helmuth Rilling
The Kansas City Chorale under Charles Bruffy
The Vancouver Chamber Choir under Jon Washburn
The Helios Ensemble under Kevin Sutton (sorry couldn't resist the
shameless self promotion.)

There are certainly others, and many of them.  I intentionally excluded
vocal ensembles such as Chanticleer, The Hilliard Ensemble and Anonymous
4 as they don't really qualify as a choir since they sing predominantly
one or two voices to a part.  I also left out the choruses that are part
of various early music groups such as The Monteverdi Choir and the Taverner
Consort etc.  These groups tend to specialize in specific repertoires.  I
included those that sing a broad base of material.

Now for some literature:

Brahms wrote a number of Glorious sacred motets.
Mendelssohn did as well.
There is chamber choir music by Schubert and Schumann as well.
Britten wrote a ton of it. Particularly nice is The Hymn to Saint
Cecilia, Rejoice in the Lamb and AMDG.
There is a vast wealth of Scandanavian choral music, and the former Soviet
bloc countries have produced a large body of fine material.  Iceland has
also generated some haunting music.  There is more fine choral music than
you will ever have time to listen to, so dig in and have fun.

Kevin Sutton