SAINT LOUIS
PASSIONS
Released for Valentine’s Day, this 2026 recording features many premières of Chamber Chorus commissions, offset by three settings of Catullus’s famous love couplet, Odi et amo and a Lassus madrigal. Departing from their customary a cappella repertoire, the choir collaborates with pianist, Diana Umali, in a song cycle by Francis Pott that takes its title – Ardor amoris – from Lassus’s text.
Release date: 2026
Tracks
1. Alleluia! A new work is come on hand — Carter Datz
2. Seeking you — Kerensa Briggs
3. Love after Chagall — Scóirse Bodley
4. Forte soporifera (LV 270) — Orlandus Lassus
*5. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Ardor amoris, 1) — Francis Pott
6. Odi et amo — Ugis Praulins
7. Hurt — Trent Reznor, arr. Melissa Dunphy
*8. Renouncement (Ardor amoris, 2) — Francis Pott
9. Miss me, but let me go — Sasha Johnson Manning
10. Carolina (from Where the Crawdads Sing) — Taylor Swift, arr. Orin Johnson
*11. To Electra (Ardor amoris, 3) — Francis Pott
12. : Odi et amo (from Catulli carmina)— Carl Orff
*13. Wild Nights! (Ardor amoris, 4) — Francis Pott
14. Tonight I dance alone — Mårten Jansson
*15. Stillness (Ardor amoris, 5) — Francis Pott
16. Odi et amo — Jakob Handl
17. Right where it belongs — Trent Reznor, arr. Melissa Dunphy
*18. If thou must love me (Ardor amoris, 6) — Francis Pott
* Diana Umali, piano
All tracks are world premiere recordings except for tracks 6, 12, and 16.
CD Reviews
Released to coincide with Valentine's Day, this latest recording from the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus offers an imaginative meditation on love in all its guises—passionate and tender, sacred and profane, timeless and contemporary. Under Philip Barnes's direction, one of America's finest choral ensembles navigates a programme spanning five centuries, from Renaissance masters to commissions by living composers, several receiving their première recordings.
… Barnes elicits singing as warm as the subject matter itself. The choir's tone is consistently beautiful, their precision, diction and dynamic shading are executed with passion and intelligence. Balance and blend are exemplary throughout, whether navigating Pott's intimate word-painting or the more robust demands of Mårten Jansson's Tonight I Dance Alone and Handl's Odi et amo. The ensemble conveys each piece's distinctive character with remarkable sensitivity, drawing the listener into their expressive world.
Diana Umali's well-judged piano accompaniment in the final Pott song provides the perfect valediction to a disc that celebrates both the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus's longstanding commitment to new music—their Composer-in-Residence scheme has nurtured talents including Manning, Melissa Dunphy, Jansson and Briggs—and the enduring power of love itself, captured across half a millennium of musical expression. –Andrew Palmer
In reviewing this ambitious project, it is appropriate to begin with words of praise for the UK label Regent Records and its tireless founder Gary and Pippa Cole. Creating great product from great music is no small task, and their dedication to that art and craft deserve ample recognition.
Equally, Saint Louis Chamber Chorus, under the direction of Philip Barnes, deserve positive attention and emulation. The organization's seventy years of stability and success under only four music directors, its contributions to the life of Saint Louis, and its ongoing commitment to furthering the choral art in its commissioning of new works stand in contrast to much of the upheaval that has plagued the performing arts during that same time period. Even a cursory reading of the repertoire list since 1989 (the year of Barnes's appointment as music director) tells the story (www.chamberchorus.org/resources).
Saint Louis Passions is the latest example of that dedication to the furtherance of new compositions and composers. Of the eighteen selections on the album, fifteen are by living composers and eleven are first recordings. As one would expect, new repertoire calls upon the best skills of both conductor and choir, and both are more than up to the task. The performances are confident, with participants navigating the vocal and musical demands of both new and established repertoire with an assured polish.
Of particular interest in this album are the three unique settings of the Latin poem, Odi et amor, by Roman poet Catullus (circa 84-54 BC), set by the Ugis Praulins (b. 1957), Carl Orff (1895-1982) and Jakob Handl (1550-1591). All three succeed in relaying the text in the composers' unique voices, skillfully performed on this recording. The piece this reviewer predicts will enter wide usage is Kerensa Briggs's Seeking You, her moving setting of Charles Allen Silvestri's pithy Christmas text, recounting a shepherd's visit to the manger. Not a word or note is wasted, evoking the spirit of Hebert Howell's Here Is The Little Door. Philip Bernes's program notes are informative and an asset to the finished product. —Wes Ramsay, Composer/Arranger/Publisher, August Press LLC