About Carmina
CARMINA (Latin for "poetry" or "songs") is a chamber choir devoted to exploring the diverse musical styles of the Middles Ages through the Baroque. Since its debut in 1998 the group has performed regularly in the Washington area, making appearances at such venues as the National Gallery of Art, Washington National Cathedral, National Presbyterian Church, Anderson House, and the German Embassy. Carmina often presents joint concerts with other local ensembles: partners have included Armonia Nova, the Bach Sinfonia, the Capitol Hill Chorale, and Ensemble Gaudior.
Carmina has been praised by both The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun, which noted the group's "gorgeous tonal balance." In 2002, Washingtonian magazine included Carmina in its list of "Good arts groups you might not know about." The same year Carmina won a special grant for new and emerging artistic organizations from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, which helped fund its performances of the medieval miracle play The Son of Getron.
Carmina and Illuminare presented Fringe Concerts at the 2017 and 2019 Boston Early Music Festivals, and the groups regularly participated in the Washington Early Music Festival. Both were invited to take part in the Washington Arts Group's 2007 international convocation in a showcase performance, An Evening of Brillance, Past and Present, which also featured several internationally known artists and ensembles. Area choral directors honored Carmina and Illuminare in 2016 with the Choralis Foundation's Greater Washington Choral Excellence "Ovation" Award for Best Chamber Choir. Carmina received an "Ovation" nomination in 2013 for Best Specialty Choir: Early Music, and both groups shared a 2017 nomination for Most Creative Programming.
Carmina’s three CDs, A Carmina Sampler, The Son of Getron, and Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu nostri, are available at concerts and through this website (see below).
Listen to Carmina and Illuminare
Click here to hear samples of some of Carmina’s and Illuminare’s best performances.
Carmina and Illuminare on CD
Click here for ordering information for A Carmina Sampler, The Son of Getron, and Membra Jesu nostri and Illuminare’s two recordings, Illuminare Sings! and A Festival of Carols.
More Pictures of Carmina
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With the Chesapeake Consort of Viols at the Church of the Ascension and St. Agnes, Washington DC: Click here.
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Performing the medieval miracle play “The Son of Getron,” St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Washington DC: Click here.
About the Singers
Carmina’s singers hail from the greater Washington DC area and have a strong interest and practiced expertise in early music.
Reviews
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“Unison singing is the gold standard of choral art. It may sound easy, but there’s nowhere to hide in a unison melodic line. Every bit of faulty intonation, every wobble and every misplaced consonant hangs out there. But unison singing is what the two chamber choruses Carmina, a mixed chorus, and Illuminare, its smaller, all-female sister ensemble, do so well, and the program they brought to St. Peter’s Catholic Church on Friday as part of the Washington Early Music Festival played handsomely to their strengths.”
- The Washington Post, June 14, 2010. Click here to read the full review. -
“Chamber choirs Carmina and Illuminare brought medieval music and words to life in an uplifting performance…. Illuminare’s 12 sopranos blossomed… the unison melody rose and fell sweetly with each verse and the choir clung to the ends of phrases so that they melted away like sugar…. [Carmina’s male singers] were striking… the baritones sounded an earthy, primeval ringing as the tenors sang tenderly above…. Both groups under director Vera Kochanowsky flowed through the Latin verses with ease and maintained a gentle, precise quality in their voices. They blended so well that only in von Bingen’s ‘O Ecclesia’ did individual timbres emerge in shapely solos.”
- The Washington Post, June 30, 2008. Click here to read the full review. -
“Carmina, a 15-voice chamber chorus conducted by Vera Kochanowsky, has come together as an ensemble, has honed its blend, perfected its pianissimo, and found ways to make complicated polyphonic textures sound transparent.”
- The Washington Post -
“For dyed-in-the-wool Anglophiles and lovers of sacred choral music, it was a program to die for…. Most admirable about Carmina’s choral approach is the gorgeous tonal balance it achieved…. …a howling success…. Carmina is led by harpsichordist Vera Kochanowsky who, in addition to knowing what it takes to put Renaissance choral music across, is a sensation at the keyboard.”
- The Baltimore Sun
Some of Our Past Concerts
“English and German Masters” - Carmina highlighted music by composers from Renaissance England — including Byrd, Tallis, Sheppard, and Tompkins — and the Germanic Baroque — including the Dutchman J. P. Sweelinck and his German musical heirs Johann Kuhnau and J. Michael, J. Christoph, and J. S. Bach. Ms. Kochanowsky played solos on St. Alban’s organ, one of only two created by builder John G. P. Leek. (February 12, 2023)
“Just for the Fun of It!” - Carmina and Illuminare celebrated a return to public music making with a joyous performance in praise of spring, featuring such delights as the bird calls of Janequin’s Le chant des oyseaux and animal noises of Banchieri’s Contraponto bestiale alla mente, Hildegard’s ecstatic chant O viridissima virga, and Josquin’s ravishing Descendi in ortum meum. (May 22, 2022)
“The Orpheus of Amsterdam: J.P. Sweelinck” with Evanne Browne, soprano; Vera Kochanowsky, virginal; Steven Alan Honley, organ - Carmina and Illuminare celebrated the 400th anniversary of Cantiones sacrae, a masterful collection of Latin motets that exhibit Sweelinck’s command of counterpoint and harmony, his sensitivity to text, and his brilliant use of rhythm and polychoral effects. We also presented choral music by two of Sweelinck’s contemporaries, Peter Philips and William Byrd; works by all three composers on a copy of a 1620 Flemish virginal; and early Baroque monodies by Philips, Giulio Caccini, and Constantijn Huygens. (November 1 & 2, 2019)
“The Soulful Heart of Italy” - Cellist-gambist Doug Poplin and organist-harpsichordist Tom MacCracken joined Carmina and Illuminare to present music in the passionate new Italian style that swept Europe in the seventeenth century. Music by Monteverdi, Mazzocchi, and Alessandro Scarlatti abounded with the vivid touches that inspired vocal works by pioneering German adherents J.H. Schein and Heinrich Schütz and purely instrumental pieces played by Ms Kochanowsky and Messrs. Poplin and MacCracken. (May 11 and 12, 2019)
“Round the Eton Choirbook” - Led by guest conductor Evanne Browne, Carmina and Illuminare sang John Browne’s passionate Stabat Mater and other music from the Eton College collection, one of the few surviving sources of the intricate, expressive Latin church music of pre-Reformation Britain. The program also featured rounds and partsongs by English court composers including King Henry VIII himself. (March 9 and 16, 2019)
“A Remote Beauty” - Illuminare’s tenth anniversary season—and the start of Carmina’s two-year stint as a men’s ensemble—began with rarely heard early repertoire, including Hildegard von Bingen’s mesmerizing Favus distillans and the dazzling Gloria from the 14th-century Mass of Tournai, as well as Solage’s mysterious Fumeux fume and works of exceptional beauty by Dufay, Spanish masters, and others. (October 21 and 26, 2018)
