"This version of 'The Cherry Tree' is both ancient and modern, and something to savor during Christmas and afterward.

"This recording will be released on September 14. Fans of early music will want to pre-order or queue at their local CD shop. This is a tremendous early holiday gift for yourself or others who could use a little holiday spirit at any time of the year."

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"The renowned vocal quartet Anonymous 4 has released yet another terrific recording; this time centered on early Christmas music and entitled The Cherry Tree. Containing 15th-century English carols and early Anglo-American songs, the program is beautifully delivered in the touching, meditative, and poetic way we've come to expect from the ensemble."

"The overall album could be called a gem, but a few pieces stand out, including the Appalachian The Cherry Tree with its monophonic structure and lilting vocals. The 15th century English carol Nowel sing we both all and some features all 4 vocalists singing in perfectly calibrated harmony. The English carol The Virgin Unspotted also features gorgeous 4-part harmony. The 15th century polyphonic carol Hail Mary Full of Grace literally stopped me in my tracks with its ethereal vocals and the American fugue Bethlehem closes the album on a satisfying note."

"You can hardly believe the purity and clarity of the voices--and I know I've said this with every new Anonymous 4 disc release--which are recorded so intimately that if there were a flaw anywhere you'd notice. But you don't. No wonder these singers regularly are compared to angels and similarly otherworldly beings." Read More...

"The experience of the vocalists in their long history singing with one another is apparent throughout. The beauty they derive from music as technically straightforward as these chants and motets is a wonder." Read More...

"The four-part unison pieces, such as 'Gloria in excelsis,' demonstrated the group's often exquisite control, as they would bring oddly dissonant harmonies to a neat resolution, while 'O Maria virgo pia' showed what they could do with an almost conventional melody.

"The audience for this show, presented by Choregus Productions, responded with a sustained standing ovation at the end." Read More...

"For its first concert in Tulsa, Anonymous 4 will present a program it calls 'A Medieval Ladymass.'

"'It's a composite of three medieval programs we've done in the past," Hellauer said. 'All the music was written in honor of the Virgin Mary - the worship of Mary was very strong in 13th century England.'"

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"The most striking aspect of the chant singing here is the ability of four voices to sound as one. This results in a loveliness of tone that sets them apart from even the finest choirs and a warmly blended sound that distinguishes them from solo singers."

"Anonymous 4's trademark vocal blend, with its sparing use of vibrato and its careful dynamic gradations within phrases, suits this music beautifully. And three solo 'ballad-carols,' along with the Americanized 'Cherry Tree Carol,' showed that the singers are as powerful and communicative on their own as they are together." Read More...

"Anonymous 4's most perfect blend and balance of any vocal ensemble is its calling card, along with unerring taste and creative programming. Easy fluency with varying styles is another strength. In solos the voices of Marsha Genensky, Susan Hellauer and Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek had individual color that disappeared when singing together." Read More...

"They sang with superb control, an enormous palette of colors and the absolutely seamless blend upon which the quartet has built its significant reputation." Read More...

"The solo and ensemble virtuosity won over an appreciative capacity audience of more than 600. The sound of vocal clarity and intelligent interpretation, hanging in the clear air of an architectural and acoustic masterpiece, delivered power and pleasure seldom encountered in this age of over-amplification, over-singing and auto-tuners. Anonymous 4's singing was rare, real and revelatory." Read More...

"Throughout, Anonymous 4 present this material with crystalline, finely meshed singing." Read More...

"'We always spend time in the library doing all this research and reading this treatise and that one. And then we have to do something that is true and honest for us and communicates with our audience.'" Read More...

"'The whole process of finding music we haven't seen before, developing it, singing through repertoire -- it's like candy; it's like dark chocolate,' Hellauer said. 'It's a new world that was there just under your vision. And then you open your eyes and it's like you've just discovered a treasure.'" Read More...

"If you think Latin is a dead language, you've never heard it sung by the women of Anonymous 4. One of the world's most popular early music ensembles, this four-woman vocal quartet takes the music of the 14th and 15th centuries and suffuses it with shimmering vibrancy. Where one might expect to find cool and somber liturgical texts of the ancient church are instead songs full of heart and disarming honesty. And, yes, they're often sung in Latin." Read More...

"Since 1986, the women of Anonymous 4 have sung medieval chant and polyphony with passion and skill."

"Two chant sequences exemplified the group's hallmark sound, four voices blending perfectly in vowel color, tone and intonation, with a rhythmic pulse neither precipitous nor lugubrious. Many of the English Renaissance selections were ingenious examples of vernacular commentaries on liturgical chants, as in "Veni redemptor gentium," in which the text refers to Ambrose, the author of the Gregorian hymn quoted in the refrain. The folk song settings, including carols by William Billings, were sung simply, without exaggerating the strident qualities often found in that style." Read More...

"Listening to Anonymous 4 sing 'Ave Maris Stella' on its 'Four Centuries of Chant' CD (released this year on Harmonia Mundi) or in concert demonstrates just how sublime chant can sound to the listener's ear when the performers follow the contours of the language, flow through the lines and generally possess what Ms. Hellauer calls a 'unity of intent.'" Read More...

"Those of us who love music have always known that when we participate in carols, whether singing them at church, serenading neighbors with them on winter lawns, or listening to them in a concert setting, we are making an important connection with folk traditions that go back centuries. In combining these two related but divergent musical repertories, Anonymous 4 opens us a fresh window into our medieval inheritance and the history that goes with it." Read More...

"Anonymous 4 may not have a patent on heavenly vocalism, but their musical scholarship and pitch-perfect sublimity have kept them far from anonymous for nearly two decades."

"Few medieval-music specialists on the planet are as celebrated as Anonymous 4, and there are few better ways to soothe your spirit than listening to these women sing chant and early polyphony."

"... the serenely scintillating voices of Anonymous 4 imparted the cloistered incantations of 13th century royal Castilian nuns in a bonfire for the soul." Read More...

"Fortunately, we can enjoy A4's wonderful singing and be enveloped in a sea musical ecstasy. They did a wonderful job on carefully choosing each track and I give them my thanks. I wouldn't want Four Centuries of Chant any other way." Read More...

"There's no doubt that Anonymous 4 are the reigning superstars of the medieval sacred music world.... Composed of 4 vocalists - Ruth Cunningham, Marsha Genensky, Susan Hellauer and Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek - the ensemble displays an uncanny vocal blend." Read More...

"When Susan Hellauer and the other not-so-Anonymous 4 take the front and begin by demonstrating the eight basic Medieval modes (ancient scales) in unison, I am reassured. Susan's voice is rich and resonant, her manner learned, humorous and encouraging. After each line she and the group sing, we hear a full 2-second reverb behind us. The result is completely ethereal. We have been transported back in time to the 13th century and the monastic spirit summoned." Read More...

"We live in an era of literacy, of reliance on the page or screen. So for New York City early music singer Susan Hellauer, the first task is to wean singers from the paper in their hands." Read More...

"Anonymous 4 proved they deserve the accolades bestowed upon them. The opening plainchant sequence, Virgines egregie, unfolded in vocal balance and with gestural lightness and ease that are extremely difficult to achieve in performances of chant." Read More...

"I think audiences hear us singing, and we work very hard to make our ensemble tight, but they really hear how much we love it." Read More...

"'This is our first year back touring with medieval music,' Genensky said. 'It does feel like a big and happy return to what we started out doing.'" Read More...