Quire Cleveland is a professional choral ensemble, founded in 2008 to perform the glorious choral masterpieces of the late Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque eras, and beyond. Members of the ensemble are soloists and choral leaders at many of the major churches in greater Cleveland. Under the direction of conductor-scholar Peter Bennett, Quire Cleveland brings to northern Ohio a new professional ensemble of unaccompanied voices.

William Fazekas, ClevelandClassical.com — May 11, 09

Several weeks a year, for the past five years, Clevelanders have been given wonderful treats — fine concerts of orchestral music performed free of charge and brought to venues in their own neighborhoods. Oh, and with “Clevelanders”, it seems we can include our neighbors in Lorain and Lake counties, as well as urban and suburban Cuyahoga. I’m speaking, of course, about CityMusic Cleveland, which celebrated its five year run of free neighborhood concerts this week with a program it called Heaven & Earth, including Mozart’s 'Jupiter' Symphony (No. 41 in C, K.551), and Schubert’s Mass No. 2 in G. As always, the program was repeated at half a dozen venues in the course of the week; this reviewer caught the performance Saturday evening at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus in Cleveland’s Slavic Village neighborhood. Continue reading »

7 centuries in 29 seconds — May 10, 09

All Things Considered, the daily afternoon news program on National Public Radio, has a well-known musical theme; when played after the news, it’s called a “trixie:”

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Staff at ATC recently invited Quire Cleveland’s president, Ross Duffin, to compose some trixies in an early-music style. Duffin composed six of them, ranging in style from 13th-century organum to Carl Orff’s well-known 1936 composition “Carmina Burana.” And he recruited the members of Quire Cleveland, as well as faculty of Case Western Reserve University’s Early Music Program, to record them. Here’s what he came up with. Continue reading (2) »

Donald Rosenberg, Cleveland Plain Dealer — May 7, 09

CityMusic Cleveland is an essential part of the region’s musical fabric. Just ask Mozart and Schubert.

The Viennese masters have the pleasure of spending nearly an hour with the chamber orchestra on the program music director James Gaffigan is leading this week to end the ensemble’s fifth season. As short as the concert may be, it’s full of transporting and towering achievement. […]

The score’s choral duties were entrusted to the inspired voices of Quire Cleveland, the new professional ensemble that focuses mainly on Medieval and Renaissance repertoire. On this occasion, it was delightful to hear director Peter Bennett and his choristers also bring exceptional purity of pitch and crisp enunciation to the Classical needs of Schubert’s youthful lines. Continue reading »

Kelly Ferjutz, Cool Cleveland — Oct 1, 08

Listening to the presentation of Quire, the new professional a capella choir during their premiere performance, one had the impression that the joyful sounds could easily have soared to the very heavens, had not the beautifully ornate gothic roof of St. John’s Cathedral stood in the way. The concert was titled “Sing Joyfully,” appropriate as the first work performed was a piece by that name, from the composer William Byrd. Several other pieces by him were also presented, as were songs by Thomas Tallis, Thomas Weelkes and Orlando Gibbons. Englishmen all, they lived between perhaps 1505 to 1625. It is the sort of music that this sort of edifice displays in all its glory. Continue reading »