If my husband were still alive, I don’t think that he would ever believe that a truly world-class choral ensemble would travel all the way to Hawaii and sing a concert in our church —the Lutheran Church of Honolulu! But that’s exactly what happened this afternoon at 3:00—the internationally-acclaimed VOCES8 was in the nave with a full house in attendance.

The concert was actually sponsored by the Hawaii Chamber Music Festival, “one of Honolulu’s premier summer festivals, bringing together world-renowned artists, emerging musicians, and the community through exceptional musical experiences.” The program opened with Mozart’s String Quintet No. 2 in C minor, K. 406/516b with two students playing alongside professionals.

Voces8 is “the 2026 Opus Klassik winner and 2023 Grammy-nominated British vocal ensemble — the world’s top-streaming classical vocal group. Touring globally, the group performs an extensive repertory both in its a cappella concerts and in collaborations with leading musicians, orchestras, conductors and soloists. Versatility and a celebration of diverse musical expression are central to the ensemble’s performance and education ethos which is shared both online and in person.”

Voces8 has been on tour through the U.S. mainland, and then is headed to Asia with a stop in Hawaii. Lucky us! This is the third VOCES8 concert I’ve heard live—the first was in 2019 when I went to England for a week to visit Port Isaac, the filming location of the TV show, “Doc Martin,” and luckily, VOCES8 was giving a concert a couple of days before my “Portwenn” visit. Go back and read my post (“Women over 60”) about the concert in Cadogan Hall in which Barnaby Smith, the director of Voces8, said that in studying their concert demographics, their biggest audience was women over 60! That was me and Joan Ishibashi, who went with me to the concert. I remember talking to Barnaby after the concert, who was so impressed that I had come all the way from Hawaii to their concert. At that time, I expressed the hope that one day the group would perform in Hawaii! And so it happened today!

Then, as now, I was completely blown away with how still the singers kept their bodies, and nobody was waving any hands to conduct—the singers just stood close to each other and breathed (and cutoff) in unison. It was like my organ teacher told me how to comport myself at the organ — Keep your body still and let the music speak for itself!

Not only keeping their bodies still, I was really impressed with the balance of the group. Not one singer stuck out when they were singing together, every voice was evenly balanced. The blend was exquisite.

Bill Potter and I just heard VOCES8 last July at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester singing music by Amerian and British composers, which you can read about here (“Setting the bar high”). The repertoire was completely different.

Today’s program was called “Devotions,” and contained all sacred a cappella choral music:

O clap your hands Orlando Gibbons
A hymn to the virgin Benjamin Britten
God, grant with grace Thomas Tallis
The Deer’s Cry Arvo Pärt
Pilgrim’s Hymn Stephen Paulus
Bogoroditse devo Sergei Rachmaninoff
Richte mich, Gott Felix Mendelssohn
and the swallow Caroline Shaw
Regina Caeli Tomás Luis de Victoria
Underneath the stars Kate Rusby
Steal Away Spiritual, arranged by David Blackwell
Nunc dimittis Gustav Holst

One of my favorite pieces of the program was “The Deer’s Cry” by Arvo Pärt, a piece I had never heard before, but as with other Pärt repertoire, an other worldly, unforgettable experience.

I also enjoyed “and the swallow,” by American composer, Caroline Shaw, which I also found on YouTube.

Much of the repertoire was familiar to me, and the concert opened with “O clap your hands” by Gibbons, a challenging but favorite piece that the church choir sang under my husband Carl. VOCES8’s performance today was absolutely exquisite.

Unfortunately I had to leave before the last piece of the concert (I left to play the Vigil Mass at St. Mark’s), but I understand that the enthusiastic audience was treated to an encore, “Fly me to the moon.”

How fortunate we were to have this group visit Hawaii!