Ensemble Altera led by Christopher Lowrey presents their third release on Alpha, an album celebrating the female voice and the Christmas season. The program is a kaleidoscopic selection made up of sacred music (settings of the Magnificat and Ave Maria) and carols composed by women with works by Hildegard von Bingen, Imogen Holst, Germaine Tailleferre, Cecilia McDowall, Joanna Marsh, Barbara Strozzi, Elizabeth Poston, and a world premiere by Kerensa Briggs. Male composers are also included, with works by John Rutter and Benjamin Britten’s famous Ceremony of Carols, a work now generally performed by boys’ choirs but which was originally written for the women of the Fleet Street Choir. Altera and the harpist Li Shan Tan perform this magical and spellbinding music with delight.