About Us

The Dmitri Ensemble is a performing ensemble based around the central core of a string ensemble, with a special commitment to recording, and to presenting both unjustly neglected and newly-penned works with an innovative approach to engaging concert programming. Under the direction of the co-founder and Principal Conductor, Graham Ross, it has worked alongside living composers and has an increasingly diverse discography.

The Ensemble’s debut disc of works by James MacMillan was released on the Naxos label in 2009 with glowing 5-star reviews, hailed as ‘outstanding’ (BBC Music Magazine, Critic’s Choice), ‘a disc in a class of its own’ (International Record Review) and ‘exceptional’ (Gramophone, Editor’s Choice).  Further recordings for Naxos have included composer-based discs of Judith Bingham’s organ concerto, Jacob’s Ladder, praised for ‘a real sense of commitment from The Dmitri Ensemble and Graham Ross’ (Classical CD Review) and Giles Swayne’s forty-part choral work The Silent Land with cellist Raphael Wallfisch, lauded as ‘enthralling’ and ‘hard to imagine a better performance’ (International Record Review).

The Ensemble’s collaborations with the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge include a disc on the Albion Records label of previously-unrecorded works by Vaughan Williams, conducted by Sir David Willcocks, and a highly-praised recording on the Harmonia Mundi USA label of choral works by Imogen Holst, which received both Diapason d’Or and Le Choix de France Musique awards, and which was shortlisted for a 2013 Gramophone Award.  A Christmas recording, Lux de caelo: Music for Christmas, released in 2014, was widely praised in the national and international press, selected as Album of the Week on New York Public Radio and Netherlands Radio 4.  Forthcoming releases in 2015 on the Harmonia Mundi USA label include the Rudolf Barshai Chamber Symphony arrangements of Dmitri Shostakovich’s string quartets, and a Ascendit Deus: Music for Ascensiontide and Pentecost with the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge.

 

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