A Choral Christmas with Stile Antico

Airs Tuesday, December 18, 2018, at 1 p.m. Celebrate Christmas with the sound of soaring voices. Stile Antico, the award-winning choir from London, pays a visit to St. Paul's Church on Harvard Square for a concert of radiant sacred music for the Christmas season by the most acclaimed composers of the renaissance. Hear the group's luminous blend of voices sing the intricately woven music of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd. Hosted by Cathy Fuller of WGBH.
     Stile Antico is a 13-member a cappella choir based in London. These young, fresh-faced singers have already racked up some impressive awards for their recordings — mainly of intricately woven music from the Renaissance.
     And that's just what the group has in store for this concert at St. Paul's Church in Cambridge, Mass. — hand-picked sacred music for the Christmas season from the English Tudor era, by 16th century composers such as Thomas Tallis and William Byrd.
     Stile Antico loves the luminous sound of complex vocal lines, and in a resonant space like St. Paul's, soprano Helen Ashby says it's especially glorious. There was a full house for this concert — the choir's U.S. debut — at the beautiful St. Paul's Church in Harvard Square. The Italian Romanesque-style building has bold and sweet acoustics, and voices reverberate off the shimmering yellow marble on the front altar.