South Florida Classical Review Lawrence Budmen December 19, 2010 In just a few short years, Seraphic Fire’s annual performances of Handel’s Messiah have become a South Florida Christmas tradition. Patrick Dupre Quigley and his remarkable choir returned, with the Firebird Chamber Orchestra, to this Baroque masterpiece Saturday night at the Arsht Center before a large and unusually attentive audience. Quigley’s compact, ninety-minute version features most of the Nativity portion with a generous selection of highlights… Read More

South Florida Classical Review David Fleshler December 9, 2010 At a candlelit Christmas concert Wednesday in Miami, the choir Seraphic Fire invited the audience to set aside thoughts of gift-wrapping, trees and colored lights and to experience the holiday as a solemn midnight service in a medieval church, monastery or cathedral. “The concept of a Jingle Bells Christmas is a relatively new one,” the choir’s artistic director, Patrick Dupré Quigley, told the audience at St…. Read More

The Miami Herald Daniel Chang October 8, 2010 Patrick Dupré Quigley has been performing music for as long as he can remember: in church, hymns lent gravitas to the ritual of Catholic mass; in school, piano lessons and choir practice filled his afternoons; on road trips to visit his grandparents as a child, songs made the hours pass quickly. But it wasn’t until his sophomore year at the University of Notre Dame, after changing majors… Read More

The Miami Herald David Fleshler November 5, 2010 The singers of Seraphic Fire set aside their scores of Bach, Handel and Monteverdi and returned to the music of their childhoods Thursday for a more personal concert of gospel, Broadway and American pop music. As artistic director Patrick Dupré Quigley told the audience at St. Christopher’s by the Sea Church in Key Biscayne, the choir members learned to sing in churches, from the radio and on… Read More

Minnesota Public Radio Julie Amacher November 2, 2010 St. Paul, Minn. — Eight years ago, Patrick Quigley moved to Miami after completing his master’s degree in conducting at Yale. He immediately began congregating with several other singers, and they decided to put on a show. That’s how the professional choral ensemble Seraphic Fire was born. The goal of Seraphic Fire is to shed new light on familiar works and to premiere and commission works by… Read More

Miami Herald Tim Norris October 1, 2010 Seraphic Fire opens its season with Rachmaninoff’s take on music of the Russian Orthodox Church A punch line gave way to a panorama Thursday night. Waiting for a well-advertised rattle-the-eardrums moment in All Night Vigil (Vespers), Sergei Rachmaninoff’s epic liturgical piece for chorus, the audience at Seraphic Fire’s season-opening performance found itself swept onto far wider, more colorful ground. The Vespers, listeners knew, would be delivered a cappella… Read More

South Florida Classical Review David Fleshler October 1, 2010 When the members of Seraphic Fire filed into a Key Biscayne church Thursday evening for their opening concert of the season, the most striking thing was how numerous they were. Regulars at the choir’s performances are accustomed to seeing a dozen or so singers, often stepping forward for solos before retreating back into the group. But for this gorgeous and rousing performance of Rachmaninoff’s Vespers-or All… Read More

South Florida Sun Sentinel Ben Crandell August 24, 2010 Lady Gaga, meet Seraphic Fire. The Miami-based chamber music choir’s new, self-released recording of Monteverdi’s “Vespers of the Blessed Virgin 1610” hit No. 1 on the iTunes classical chart over the weekend, and for a brief time on Sunday topped Gaga’s “The Fame Monster” (Deluxe Edition) on the iTunes all-genre chart. The bump in popularity may have been driven by a profile of the album on… Read More

NPR’s All Things Considered Jeff Lunden August 21, 2010 Last week, a recording of Claudio Monteverdi’s 1610 masterpiece, Vespers of the Blessed Virgin, was released on iTunes. It promptly landed in the Top 10 classical recordings on iTunes, sandwiched between the London Symphony Orchestra’ s Beethoven and Yo-Yo Ma’s Bach. What makes this surprising is that the recording is by a little-known Miami-based professional choir called Seraphic Fire — and the musicians released it themselves…. Read More

South Florida Classical Review Laurence Budman June 10, 2010 Whether Patrick Dupre Quigley is leading his remarkable chamber choir Seraphic Fire in Renaissance polyphony, Baroque cantatas, contemporary minimalism or down-home indigenous song, he produces the most ravishing vocal sonorities, marked by scrupulous attention to dynamics and ensemble precision. For the opening program of the choir’s summer series Wednesday at St. Christopher’s by the Sea in Key Biscayne, Quigley returned to the gospel and bluegrass tradition,… Read More

The Miami Herald Andrea Asuaje June 2010 Only one word seems apt enough to characterize the musical artistry the members of Seraphic Fire demonstrated at Wednesday’s summer-season opening concert: destiny. The choral group’s perfect balance of tone quality, control, range and dynamic variation far exceeded expectations in its 15-song performance of American folk and gospel music. The intimate scale of St. Christopher’s-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Key Biscayne played into the concert’s theme of ”Precious Lord,… Read More

Palm Beach ArtsPaper Greg Stepanich October 4, 2009 In its previous seven seasons of music-making, the members of Seraphic Fire have presented hugely varied concerts that included everything from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas to American gospel, from all six Bach motets to world premieres of challenging contemporary music written just for them. But in its opening series of concerts for its eighth season, the Miami-based concert choir has gone back to basics, to the kind… Read More

South Florida Classical Review David Fleshler October 2, 2009 In these challenging times, arts organizations do what they must to sell tickets. And so on Thursday the Miami choir Seraphic Fire opened its eighth season-to a sold-out house- with a concert entitled “The Musical Da Vinci Code: A Musician, a Message and a Pope. “ Actually despite the gimmicky name-and the use of Leonardo’s famous Vitruvian Man drawing on the program-there was no mention that… Read More