Singing Stories & Telling Songs

Singing Stories & Telling Songs is a history of English vocal groups. It begins with music meetings in the 17th century, which led to the formation of singing clubs and public concerts during the 18th century, the beginning of concert tours in the 19th century with professional singing groups performing glees and part-songs, and eventually to the 20th century, when a group called The English Singers sang madrigals in London, then across England, then in north America, and eventually around the world.

And this was just the beginning. After World War Two the early music movement came alive everywhere, and England’s singers were at the cutting edge of it all. There were new music groups and new ways of singing, and groups who sang close harmony, jazz and swing. In the 1960s London witnessed a musical revolution – pop, rock and jazz, and likewise among the extended vocal technicians of the avant-garde, and the growing number of early music devotees.

Paul Hillier (b. 1949) is an English conductor, music director, baritone, and author. He is a specialist in vocal music history and was the founding director of the internationally acclaimed Hilliard Ensemble in 1973. In 1990, he moved to California and established the vocal group Theatre of Voices. He has taught in the USA at the University of California campuses at Santa Cruz and Davis, and from 1996-2003 was Director of the Early Music Institute at Indiana University. He was Principal Conductor of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (2001-2007) and Chief Conductor of Ars Nova Copenhagen (2003-2023). Recently, in 2023, he was the winner of the Carl Nielsen Prize.