Christopher Wolverton and Vox named 2006 winners of the Noah Greenberg award for "Extreme Singing: The La Rue Requiem and other Extreme works."

Christopher Wolverton and Vox, along with University of Rochester and Eastman School of Music professor Honey Meconi, were named as recipients of the American Musicological Society's prestigious  2006 Noah Greenberg Award.

The Greenberg Award, given for distinguished contributions to historical performing practices, recognized Wolverton and Meconi for the two-part project titled "Extreme Singing." The project, which focuses on Renaissance music composed and performed in very low registers, involves a forthcoming CD (click here for purchasing information and sound clips) by Vox.  The CD will include Pierre de la Rue's Requiem, one of the lowest-pitched pieces of music for a cappella voices. The  La Rue Requiem was written at such a low pitch that many scholars have deemed this work as "unperformable” at its written pitch.  In September 2006, Vox shattered this myth by becoming the first modern ensemble in the world to record the Requiem at its written pitch.   In addition to the Requiem the recording will include the world-premiere of several other "extreme" works. The CD is scheduled  for release in the late 2007/early 2008 timeframe.

Meconi is also writing an article, titled "Extreme Singing," that points out evidence confirming the performance of such pieces at written pitch rather than transposed to a higher range. The award committee described the project as "a marvelous integration of work in music history, theory, performance, and performance practice, with spectacular results."

The Noah Greenberg Award was established by the Trustees of the New York Pro Musica Antiqua in memory of their founder and first director and is intended  to stimulate active cooperation between scholars and performers by recognizing and fostering outstanding contributions to historical performing practices.  The American Musicological Society, the premiere scholarly organization in the music field, was founded in 1934 as a non-profit organization to advance research in the various fields of music.

Previous winners of the Greenberg Award include early music luminaries as: Phillip Cave and Sally Dunkley, Juliane Baird, Louise Stein, Jeannette Sorrell  and Apollo’s Fire, Alexander Blachly, Phillip Brett,  The Orlando Consort, Ross Duffin and Richard Taruskin.