Apollo5 Returns to St. Peter's
Acclaimed British vocal ensemble, APOLLO5, to perform at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in St. Louis
Friday, February 14, at 7 p.m.
APOLLO5 arrives in the USA in mid-February for four concerts in four states. Their first stop is St. Louis at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church for a Valentine’s Day concert at 7 pm. To the delight of St. Louis audiences, this is a return engagement. APOLLO5 performed at St. Peter’s in 2022. As one of three principal ensembles of the VOCES8 Foundation, the APOLLO5 concert is sure to be a choral tour de force, marking the ensembles’ 15th anniversary.
Five voices -- soprano, mezzo, two tenors, and bass -- with unparalleled individual talent create an immaculate blend that captivates audiences across genres including jazz, pop, classical, and early sacred music. APOLLO5 engages over 20,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and is consistently praised by Gramophone, BBC Radio 3, and Classic FM. Their performances fill halls throughout Europe including Wigmore Hall, Barbican Centre, and Royal Albert Hall, London; Alte Oper, Frankfurt; The Grand Theatre in Warsaw; Annenkirche, Dresden; Stiftskirche, Stuttgart; The Philharmonie, Luxembourg; and BeethovenFest, Bonn. BBC Music Magazine has awarded them multiple 5-star reviews, extolling: “One-to-a-part performances of repertoire spanning nine centuries no less… an inspired programme, superbly sung throughout…exceptional cohesion and effortless style… faultless.”
APOLLO5’s exclusive tour includes other performances in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Texas, and also celebrates the release of their seventh album Anam: Music to Move the Soul on VOCES8 Records. ‘Anam’ translates as ‘soul’ in Gaelic, signaling the strong Celtic theme that shapes the album’s new arrangements of folk songs, pagan texts, Robert Burns’ poems, new commissions inspired by Scottish and Irish musical traditions, and traditional instruments including authentic Uilleann pipes. “Black is the Colour,” the first single release from Anam, was spotlighted by Gramophone as the Video of the Day upon its release in December ahead of the full album launch in line with Robert Burns’ Night, January 24 in 2025. Their programs in the USA will draw heavily from Anam and showcase selected favorites from their vast performance repertoire.
St. Peter's is located at 110 N. Warson Road, St. Louis, MO 63124.
About APOLLO5
Celebrating its 15th year in 2025, APOLLO5 continues to thrill, move and inspire audiences as one of Britain’s smallest but most impressive vocal groups. Comprising a soprano, mezzo-soprano, two tenors and a bass, the ensemble – which takes its name from the ancient Greek god of music – has become known for its ability to connect with intimacy and directness, showcasing with rich, dynamic and distinctive sound how powerful five voices alone can be. With a versatile approach to music programming, and a repertoire spanning renaissance, classical and contemporary choral works to folk, jazz and pop, the group’s five voices bring the music of five centuries to life.
APOLLO5 has delivered an ambitious education program and accumulated a busy touring schedule that has taken the group to many European countries, the USA and Asia. In addition to performing at prestigious UK venues such as the Barbican Centre, Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, St John’s Smith Square and Wembley Arena, the group has toured extensively across Belgium, Germany and France.
The group has released six solo studio albums on the VOCES8 Records label. Haven, which explores the music of troubled, displaced and persecuted composers and features a full setting of William Byrd’s Mass For Five Voices, was released in 2023 to critical acclaim. Other albums include Where All Roses Go and O Radiant Dawn (both of which charted in the top five of the UK Classical Charts), winter disc A Deep But Dazzling Darkness, and Invocations, a piano- accompanied treasury of favorite songs recorded with composer and arranger Fraser Wilson. In January 2025, APOLLO5 will release their seventh album, Anam, a Gaelic-tinged program of ‘music to move the soul’.
As part of the VOCES8 Foundation, APOLLO5 works alongside VOCES8 and Paul Smith to deliver a transformative program of workshops, masterclasses and concerts to over 40,000 young people annually in the UK, Europe, the USA and Asia.
“exceptional cohesion and effortless style... faultless. ★★★★★” BBC Music Magazine
“an unbroken spectrum, [creating] the illusion of larger forces” CHOIR & ORGAN
“Exceptionally beautiful singing” CLASSIC FM
★★★★★ – “bristling, youthful economy” THE OBSERVER
“harmonious without the slightest concession to quality... the rapt listener would be hard put to find fault” YORKSHIRE TIMES
About Anam: Music to move the soul
APOLLO5 present their seventh studio album: Anam a collection of Music to Move the Soul. The disc marks the fifteenth anniversary of the British vocal group, in 2025. The collection has an emphasis on the rich Celtic bardic tradition, imbued with human emotion, landscape and heritage. APOLLO5 turn a stylistically varied program into a versatile yet cohesive album. There are new arrangements of Scottish folk songs as well as compositions written for the ensemble inspired by Celtic traditional music of the British Isles, some using Gaelic text (‘anam’ means the soul in Scottish and Irish Gaelic) Woven throughout the album are also stirring Italian Renaissance madrigals, evocative new settings of Romantic English poetry, as well as expressive contemporary choral works by composers such as Michael McGlynn and James MacMillan.
There is a strong female presence across the disc, with new works and arrangements by Lucy Walker, Teena Lyle, Rebecca Tavener and APOLLO5 soprano Penelope Appleyard. The poetry of Christina Rosetti is also presented in a new piece for the ensemble. APOLLO5 has collaborated with several instrumentalists on Anam, with guest appearances from clàrsach player Ruth Wall, uilleann pipe player Rita Farrell, and renowned percussionist Teena Lyle.
The album’s seventeen tracks explore how a strong connection to tradition, homeland and nature can inspire music and poetry that feels somehow timeless in imagery and emotional depth, with a power to move the soul from generation to generation.