for your consideration

Best Choral Performance

Contemporary Classical Composition | “Where Are You”

Engineered Album | Classical

In early 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic brought in-person music making to an abrupt halt. Churches and concert halls were suddenly left empty and silent.

Into the Light is a collaboration between Sterling Ensemble and composer Richard Burchard. The artists firmly believe music is not created to live in a vacuum. In the creation of this project, the decision was made to forego the sterility and safety of a recording studio and instead record the music where it was intended to live.  This album was recorded in three arcs: Latin Liturgical, English Poetry, and Darkness into Light.  Each arc was recorded in a different, distinct space: an urban cathedral, a university concert hall, a residential church.

“Into the Light” is not only a compilation of Richard Burchard’s choral music, it is also a study of sound in space. In the urban cathedral, you will hear the vaulted ceilings and the marble surfaces. You may also notice the occasional ambient noise of urban living.  The clarity of the university concert hall illuminates the English poetry and highlights Burchard’s ability to evocatively set text. The residential church, lacking in grandeur and refinement, allows raw human emotion to be expressed, prompting one’s progression from difficulty and loss to hope and healing.

Founded in 2018, the Sterling Ensemble is a semi-professional choir based in Los Angeles.  In addition to featuring existing works by Richard Burchard, “Into the Light” includes two new compositions: “Ave Verum Corpus” and “Where Are You?”.