The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir

The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (EPCC) has become Estonia’s best-known professional music group and one of the best choirs in the world. Since 2001 the choir’s chief conductor and artistic director has been the renowned British musician Paul Hillier. He has widened the choir’s perspectives and continued their success both in the recording field and as a group performing at prominent concert venues and festivals in the world.

The EPCC was founded in 1981 by Tõnu Kaljuste, who was its artistic director and chief conductor for 20 years. At the 1991 Takarazuka Chamber Choir Competition in Japan the choir won three gold medals and was awarded the Grand Prix. The EPCC gives 60 – 70 concerts per season and tours regularly in Europe, the United States, Canada and Japan. Their repertoire is all-encompassing, ranging from Gregorian Chant to the 20th century. Works by Bach and contemporary composers, as well as Estonian choral music have a great importance in choir’s programmes. The choir has a close relationship with composers Veljo Tormis and Arvo Pärt, whose music has shared a very special place in the EPCC’s repertoire for many years.

The choir has worked with many conductors and orchestras, such as Claudio Abbado, Helmuth Rilling, Sir David Willcocks, Dale Warland, Eric Ericson, Ivan Fisher, Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Nikolai Aleksejev, Andrew Lawrence-King, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Roland Böer and others; orchestras include the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Prague Chamber Orchestra, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Berlin Rundfunk Orchestra, Concerto Copenhagen, Israel Camerata, Concerto Palatino, His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, and naturally Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra.

The choir’s recordings for the ECM NEW Series include: Forgotten Peoples and Litany to Thunder by Veljo Tormis (chosen as best choral CD in 2000 by the Diapason magazine in France), Arvo Pärt’s Kanon pokajanen, Te Deum (with Tallinn Chamber Orchestra) and Litany (with the Hilliard Ensemble), and Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Crystallisatio. For Virgin Classics the choir has recorded Casting a Spell by Veljo Tormis and Beatus by Arvo Pärt. For Carus the EPCC and Tallinn Chamber Orchestra recorded 2 CDs of Mozart in 2000 (Litaniae and Vesperae et Litania), and 2 CDs of Vivaldi in 2002-2003 (Salmi a due cori and Gloria). All these recordings have received great critical acclaim by leading music critics and music magazines all over the world.

In the summer of 2002 the EPCC and Paul Hillier started a cooperation with Harmonia Mundi, recording Baltic Voices 1 and Powers of Heaven (Russian Orthodox Church music from the 18th century). The three-year project Baltic Voices, whose main idea is to explore the breadth and depth of choral music from the countries around the Baltic Sea, continued in 2003 with the recording of Baltic Voices 2. Baltic Voices 3 was recorded in November 2004. The EPCC has received six Grammy nominations (Te Deum, Litany, Crystallisatio, Kanon pokajanen, and Baltic Voices 1 and 2), and the latest releases by Harmonia Mundi in 2005, All-Night Vigil by Rachmaninov and Baltic Voices 3 have already received excellent reviews (in The New York Times, in the Diapason magazine; Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik etc).

During the 2004/05 season the EPCC has performed at major music festivals, such as Settembre Musica in Turin, OpeNBaroque and Estonian Music Days in Tallinn, the Helsinki Church Music Festival, Heidelberg Spring Festival, Holland Festival in Amsterdam, and Syrinx Festival in Venice. It has made tours to Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Germany, the UK and France, and finished with a Late Night concert at the BBC Proms in August with the specially devised programme “Arvo Pärt and Early Music”.

In September 2005 the EPCC organised a major festival in Estonia to celebrate Arvo Pärt’s 70th birthday at his homeland (Rakvere Arvo Pärt Festival 2005). The 2005/06 season also includes the choir’s first visit to Porto to perform in the stunning new Casa da Música, the performance of a newly commissioned work by Arvo Pärt at the Turin Winter Olympics, a tour to Asia, an EBU (European Broadcast Union) Christmas Concert in December, a three-week tour in the USA (the choir’s seventh visit), concerts with the Concerto Copenhagen, concerts at the Festival de Saint-Denis in France, and many performances in their native Estonia.