In their latest album, Ensemble Altera journeys through wind, earth, water, fire, and quintessence — the ancient idea of a fifth essence. Across five chapters, music from the Renaissance to the present explores these forces not as fixed substances but as living metaphors: breath and inspiration, rootedness and belonging, stillness and flow, passion and transformation, and what may lie beyond …

On their eleventh album for Hyperion, The Gesualdo Six explore a more secular repertoire, drawing on music they have performed live since their formation in 2015. The program spans Renaissance works celebrating nature and love, alongside contemporary settings of texts by Christina Rossetti and Kathleen Jamie. Themes of childhood and innocence run throughout, interwoven with imaginative reworkings of traditional British …

One of the UK’s foremost recording choirs, The London Choral Sinfonia marks its tenth anniversary with On Christmas Night, a festive collection of classic carols in vivid new orchestrations. Led by conductor Michael Waldron, highlights include star treble Malakai Bayoh as soloist in Howard Blake’s “Walking in the Air,” and British soprano Emma Bell singing a new arrangement of “O …