The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (EPCC) is a professional choir

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

 based in Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

. It was founded in 1981 by Tõnu Kaljuste

Tõnu Kaljuste

Tõnu Kaljuste is an Estonian conductor.Born in Tallinn, Kaljuste is the child of Heino Kaljuste , an Estonian choral conductor, and Lia Kaljuste, a radio journalist. Tõnu sang in his father's choirs as a child, and graduated from the Tallinn Music High School in 1971...

, who was its conductor for twenty years. In 2001, Paul Hillier

Paul Hillier

Paul Douglas Hillier is a conductor, music director and baritone. He specializes in early music and contemporary art music, especially that by composers Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford and the Guildhall School of Music, beginning his professional career while a...

 followed Kaljuste's tenure, becoming the EPCC's principal conductor and artistic director until September 2008, when Daniel Reuss

Daniel Reuss

Daniel Reuss is primarily known as a choral conductor.-Biography:Daniel Reuss studied with Barend Schuurman at the Rotterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands....

 took over the task. The repertoire of the EPCC ranges from Gregorian Chant

Gregorian chant

Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...

 to modern works, particularly those of the Estonian composers Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...

 and Veljo Tormis

Veljo Tormis

Veljo Tormis is an Estonian composer, regarded to be one of the greatest living choral composers and one of the most important composers of the 20th century in Estonia. Internationally, his fame arises chiefly from his extensive body of choral music, which exceeds 500 individual choral songs, most...

. The group has been nominated for numerous Grammy Award

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

s, and won the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance

Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance

The Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance has been awarded since 1961. There have been several minor changes to the name of the award over this time:*In 1961 the award was known as Best Classical Performance - Choral ...

 with Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...

's Da pacem.

Discography

• Scattered Rhymes: Tarik O'Regan
  Tarik O'Regan
  Tarik O'Regan , full name Tarik Hamilton O'Regan , is a British composer, partly of Algerian extraction. His compositions number over 90 and are partially represented on 22 recordings which have been recognised with two GRAMMY nominations. He is also the recipient of two British Composer Awards...
  
   & Guillaume de Machaut
  Guillaume de Machaut
  Guillaume de Machaut was a Medieval French poet and composer. He is one of the earliest composers on whom significant biographical information is available....
  
  (2008)
• A New Joy (2006)
• Arvo Pärt: Da pacem (2006) - won Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance
  Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance
  The Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance has been awarded since 1961. There have been several minor changes to the name of the award over this time:*In 1961 the award was known as Best Classical Performance - Choral ...
  
   2007
• Baltic Voices 3 (2005)
• Lepo Sumera
  Lepo Sumera
  Lepo Sumera was an Estonian composer and teacher. Considered one of Estonia's most renowned composers along with Heino Eller and Arvo Pärt, he was also his country's Minister of Culture from 1988 to 1992 during the days of the Singing Revolution.He was born in Tallinn and studied with Veljo...
  
  : Mushroom Cantata (2005)
• Rachmaninov
  Sergei Rachmaninoff
  Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
  
  : All-Night Vigil (2005)
• Baltic Voices 2 (2004)
• The Powers of Heaven (2003)
• Antonio Vivaldi
  Antonio Vivaldi
  Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...
  
  : Gloria, Settings from the Mass and Vespers (2003)
• Baltic Voices 1 (2002)
• Antonio Vivaldi: Salmi a due cori (2002)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
  
  : Litaniae (2000)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Vesperae et Litania (2000)
• Veljo Tormis: Laulu palju (Liederhaufen) (2000)
• Paul Giger
  Paul Giger
  Paul Giger , is a Swiss violinist and composer. He plays contemporary classical music, jazz, and free improvised music, and specializes in extended techniques....
  
  : Ignis (2000)
• Veljo Tormis: Litany to Thunder (1999)
• Karl August Hermann, Raimo Kangro, Leelo Tungal
  Leelo Tungal
  Leelo Tungal is an Estonian poet, children's literature author, editor and librettist.-Life:She studied Estonian literature at the University of Tartu. After her graduation, she has worked as a teacher, editor, drama and literature consultant for the Estonian Puppet Theatre, and as a freelance...
  
  : Eesti lauleldused (Estonian Singspiel
  Singspiel
  A Singspiel is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera...
  
  s) (1999)
• Arvo Pärt: Kanon Pokajanen
  Kanon Pokajanen
  Kanon Pokajanen is a 1997 composition by Arvo Pärt for four-part choir. The text is the "Canon of Repentance to Our Lord Jesus Christ", an Orthodox hymn written by St. Andrew of Crete, originally in Greek sometime in the eighth century and translated into Slavonic as early as the ninth century...
  
  (1998)
• Arvo Pärt: Beatus (1997)
• Veljo Tormis: Casting a Spell (1996)
• Arvo Pärt: Litany (1996)
• Erkki-Sven Tüür
  Erkki-Sven Tüür
  Erkki-Sven Tüür is an Estonian composer.Tüür was born in Kärdla on the Estonian island of Hiiumaa. He studied flute and percussion at the Tallinn Music School from 1976 to 1980 and composition with Jaan Rääts at the Tallinn Academy of Music and privately with Lepo Sumera from 1980 to 1984...
  
  : Crystallisatio (1996)
• Kaunimad laulud (The Most Beautiful Songs) (1994)
• Arvo Pärt: Te Deum
  Te Deum
  The Te Deum is an early Christian hymn of praise. The title is taken from its opening Latin words, Te Deum laudamus, rendered literally as "Thee, O God, we praise"....
  
  (1993)
• Veljo Tormis: Forgotten Peoples (1992)