choral
- A Cappella Almanac - Official site of CASA, the Contemporary A Cappella Society of America, a worldwide clearinghouse for all-vocal music. News, events, groups, albums, tips and advice, reviews, classifieds, web directory, and library of available song arrangements.
- The Beginning - All-vocal hip-hop CD from artist Sane CHUK Cristianwits includes rap covers and Christian originals.
- Primarily A Cappella Radio - Web-based streaming RealPlayer radio featuring a variety of programs playing different styles of a cappella music.
- RARB - Recorded A Cappella Review Board - Independent reviewers rate recent CDs according to criteria such as tuning, blend, production quality and soloists. Submissions.
- Anglican Church Music - Web Ring host
- Calvin Taylor Music - Original choral and instrumental music: CDs, tapes, video, sheet music, music books.
- Choir Schools Association - The CSA is an organisation which supports the work of Choirs Schools throughout the UK. It provides a useful resource to those already involved in cathedral music, and for those looking to getting involved.
- Choral Music by Crawford R. Thoburn - Information on 100 published a cappella and accompanied works for mixed and treble vocal ensembles. Reviews, repertoire suggestions, noteworthy performances, ordering tips, and biography.
- Friends of Cathedral Music - Schedules, information, requests for donations
- Liturgica - Presents the development of liturgical worship and music in the Judeo-Christian traditions.
- A New Beginning: an Oasis for Spiritual Renewal - Original choral music based around the life of Christ: Audio samples; Sales of CD, sheet music.
- Orthodox Church Music - Ensembles from Georgia and Central Europe, MP3s, and information on Liturgical chants in the Orthodox Church.
- St. Petersburg Vocal Ensemble Russicum - The repertoire includes older pieces, musical scores of the russian monastic tradition, as well as works by famous russian composers such as Tchaikovsky, Bortniansky and Archangelsky.
A choir or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers.
A vocal ensemble which sings in a church, or sings exclusively sacred music, is called a choir, whereas an ensemble which performs the non-soloist parts of an opera or musical theatre production (or sometimes an oratorio) is called a chorus. For most other ensembles those two words may be used interchangeably. Other equivalent terms, often used in the names of choirs to provide variety, include chorale. There are also terms for more specific types of choir, such as glee club, barbershop quartet, and Madrigal group.
A choir usually has eight or more singers, typically with two or more singers on each part; a chorus is typically larger still, with many singers on each part. Smaller vocal ensembles are usually called trios, quartets, quintets, etc. (e.g., barbershop quartet), or a vocal group or singing group.
A great number of composers have written choral works. However, composing instrumental music is an entirely different field than composing vocal music. The requirements of including text, making it intelligible, and catering to the special capabilities and limitations of the human voice makes composing vocal music in some ways more demanding than composing instrumental music. Due to this difficulty, many of the greatest composers have never composed choral music. Naturally, many composers have their favourite instruments and rarely compose for other types instruments or ensembles, and choral music is in this sense not a special case. On the other hand, many composers of all eras have specialized in choral music, and for the first thousand years of western music history choral music was one of the only types of music to have survived intact.
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