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Still Waters marks an important and deeply exciting chapter for all of us here at The Mancunium Consort. It is the second fruit of our blossoming partnership with VOCES8 Records, a collaboration founded on a shared belief in the expressive power, intimacy, and timelessness of vocal music. We are immensely proud to present this programme together. At the heart of this album lies the idea of stillness - not as silence or absence, but as a space for reflection, resonance, memory and wonder. Across music spanning centuries, the programme interweaves early and contemporary repertoire, drawing unexpected threads between the Renaissance sacred motet, Romantic lyricism, folk tradition, and modern choral soundscapes. These works speak to one another across time, revealing how enduring our human impulses towards contemplation, prayer, dreaming, and connection to nature truly are.

The album moves through many forms of stillness: the hush of night in Brahms’ In Stiller Nacht, the suspended dreamscape of Whitacre’s Sleep, moments of sacred meditation in Tallis, Górecki and Smith, and the elemental pull of water and landscape in The Water of Tyne and Shenandoah. Elsewhere, works such as Elgar’s They are at Rest and Macdonald’s When the Earth Stands Still invite us into spaces of remembrance and awe, while Stanford’s luminous The Blue Bird and Grieg’s Ave Maris Stella shimmer with quiet transcendence.

We are especially delighted to include a newly commissioned arrangement of the traditional Northern English folksong The Water of Tyne by Blake Morgan, long-standing tenor of VOCES8. Blake’s setting beautifully captures the spirit of this programme - rooted in tradition yet unmistakably modern, intimate yet expansive - and we are grateful for the artistry and care he has brought to this collaboration.

Throughout ‘Still Waters’, we have sought to create a broad and immersive sound world: music that resonates long after the final cadence, inviting listeners into moments of calm, reflection, and imagination. Whether through the stillness of prayer, the mystery of dreams, or the enduring rhythms of water and nature, these works remind us of the quiet spaces in which meaning is often most profoundly felt.

Released on VOCES8 Records