In 2008 The Ebor Singers embark on the long-term project of performing and recording the complete sacred music of Marc-Antoine Charpentier.

Charpentier (c 1643-1704) lived and worked in Paris during the reign of Louis XIV. His rivalry with Lully, a court favourite of Louis XIV, ensured that his music was all but forgotten at his death.

The Project will place Charpentier's music in the context of French music (Lully, Du Mont, Bouzignac, Lalande) and the wider context of European developments (Italy, Germany, and special emphasis on England).

Programmes:

Songs of Remembrance

Musical homages by 16th- and 17th-century composers to commemorate the death of a patron or contemporary, including works by Henry Purcell, Heinrich Schutz and Marc-Antoine Charpentier.

Messe pour les Trespasses, H.2; Motet pour les Trespasses (H.311); Pie Jesu (H.234)

Les Arts Florissants

Charpentier's celebrated divertissement depicts Music, Poetry, Painting and Architecture maintaining Peace and Harmony despite Discord's attempts to bring confusion to the kingdom.

Les Arts Florissants (H.487); Magnificat (H.73); Litanies de la Vierge (H.83)

Magnificat: Music in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary

A programme that reflects not only the importance of the Blessed Virgin Mary in seventeenth-century France, but also the sheer variety of Charpentier's sacred output - motets for single or few voices through to three choirs, from Marian antiphons and hymns to large-scale oratorios.

Magnificat (H.72, 73, 60); Salve regina (H.23, 24, 27); Ave maris stella (H.67); Canticum in honorem Beatae Virginis Mariae, (H.400); Litanies de la Vierge (H.83)