ACAPPELLA CD RECOMMENDATIONS

As already mentioned the Cantus CDs are very good. They are available from Stereophile. I think "Let your voice be heard" is the one I like best. I'll have to look when I get home.

I've also heard the ARC Choir, I don't know why, but I hate it. I do know a number of people that like it though...

I second the Fairfield Four, but would suggest that "Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray" is more 'accessible' (Standing in the Safety Zone is classic but it sounds as if it is mostly recorded off old 45s and while it's great gospel, the recording quality of CHNP is MUCH better).

I am also a big fan of Arvo Part choral music (my personal favorites are "Orient & Occident", "Miserere", "Magnificat", and "De Profundis", and some of the more recent recordings of the Berliner Messe). I find his music to be both beautiful AND intellectually stimulating though one has to be able to accept listening to unabashedly religious themes (a good deal is in Latin but there is no mistaking what it is...)

Recently picked up Christopher Tye's Latin & English Church Music with the choir of Magdalen College Oxford, it has some recorder music but mostly acapella, have found it heavenly to listen to

CDBaby.com

T_Bone,

"I second the Fairfield Four, but would suggest that "Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray" is more 'accessible' (Standing in the Safety Zone is classic but it sounds as if it is mostly recorded off old 45s and while it's great gospel, the recording quality of CHNP is MUCH better)."

You might want to listen (Safety Zone)again. Only the first track, intentionally, sounds like an old, scratchy record. The rest provides absolutely astounding, you are there, sonics. I also feel the song selection is stronger.