Beginning with its founding in 1982 as His Majestie’s Clerkes, Bella Voce has delighted Chicago audiences with performances of the classic a cappella repertoire, soon branching out into early music of the Americas, and then into folk songs from all over the world, eventually performing in more than two dozen different languages.
In 2004 Bella Voce was honored with the prestigious Alice Parker ASCAP Chorus America Award for programming that was “an adventurous stretch” for both singers and audience, notably the 2002 Midwest premiere of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s “Vigilia.”
Over the years, Bella Voce brought such distinguished guest conductors as Sir David Willcocks, Paul Hillier, Simon Preston, and Alice Parker to Chicago and itself appeared as a guest ensemble in concert series from Stratford-upon-Avon, England, to St. Louis, Missouri.
The ensemble has recorded for Centaur, Harmonia Mundi, Narada, and Cedille Records; and has two self-produced CDs in release, with another imminent.
A particular contribution of Bella Voce to the arts has been its commissions of choral works by Midwest composers including Rami Levin, Frank Ferko, and Gustavo Leone. The latest of these commissions, “Mar,” a setting of a Garcia Lorca poem by Janika Vandervelde, was premiered in the spring of 2005.
The change of name from His Majestie’s Clerkes to Bella Voce was accomplished in 2001, in order for the ensemble’s name to truly reflect the breadth of its repertoire.
In 2005, the organization's long-time artistic director, Dr. Anne Heider, retired after more than 16 years leading the group. In 2006, after a year-long search, Andrew Lewis was recently named as Bella Voce’s new artistic director. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.