Search - Artists Vocal Ensemble, Christine Brandes, Strata :: In This Place

This debut album by composer Frank La Rocca chronicles a remarkable series of choral and instrumental works composed in the past ten years. His music is a transcendent blend of traditional polyphony and modernist dissonance, much like the music of John Tavener or Arvo Pärt, though it is more in line with the Roman Catholic tradition rather than the somewhat more austere Orthodox tradition of Pärt and Tavener. La Rocca's odyssey as a composer traces a course similar to others of his generation, from an academically-sanctioned, fractured modernism to a rediscovery of the power and beauty to be found in a revival of older harmonic and tonal languages from Medieval and Renaissance sources. There is a compelling, luminous introspection to be found in this music, a 'radiant evocation of the spirituality of ancient chant' (Chicago Sun-Times) that reaches deep into the listener's heart and opens a vista on a realm of beauty and truth that is 'Ever Ancient and Ever New.' (St. Augustine)