Congratulations on winning the Limelight Vocal Recording of the Year 2018. It’s a magical disc and a beautifully conceived album. What was your thinking behind the program?

I do relatively little choral music, in the sense that I’m not a specialist, but I think it’s really important when you look at smaller pieces that they are put into some sort of creative program. Too many recordings of vocal music are just the conductor’s favourite pieces and that’s not always a great way of exploring this music. One of the things that really interests me about most of the sacred repertoire is that actually there are themes and emotions that transcend the music of all periods, and indeed there are a lot of technical similarities as well. I think the idea of building a program around groups of pieces designed to illuminate each other is a much more interesting concept. But it does take an awful lot of time and you do drive yourself absolutely bloody crazy sometimes getting to where you need to get.

Paul McCreesh, Recording of the Year, Vocal Recording of the YearPaul McCreesh. Photo © Ben Wright

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