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| Irene Messoloras |
Following on from their debut EP, Serenity (2024), and A Meridian Christmas (2025), London-based professional chamber choir Meridian, founder and director Irene Messoloras, have released their debut album on Signum Classics. Finding Light features John Shepherd's Libera nos as part of a programme that has a focus on contemporary composers including music by Vytautus Miškinis, Hanna Havrylets, Rihards Dubra, Henryk Górecki, Benedict Sheehan, Karl Jenkins, Thora Marteinsdottir, Alexander L’Estrange, Stephen Paulus and Morton Lauridsen.
Irene describes the disc as "a shared act of expression that spans centuries, cultures, and traditions."
Irene is a Greek-American conductor based in California where she is the Director of Choral Activities at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and currently serves as the Associate Chair of the Music Department. In 2025, Irene’s UCI Chamber Singers received first place in The American Prize for Best Choral Performance, university division.
The focus of Finding Light is deliberately spiritual in a more general sense. Irene's choice of music focuses on intimate expression. She herself uses prayer and meditation, and she wanted the disc to make people feel connected to what they feel close to, to reflect. She hopes that the listener will bring their own meaning and reflections to the music, where sacred repertoire can have a sense of meditation and stillness even for the non-religious.
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| Irene Messoloras & Meridian recording Finding Light at All Hallows Church |
Whilst John Shepherd's responsory, Libera Nos might seem something of an outlier in a programme that focuses on contemporary composer, Irene felt that its gravity and calm anchors the programme. She also finds a sense of urgency in the piece which helps to start the theme of the disc. The other pieces are deliberately widely chosen with composers from the USA, Baltic, Iceland, Ukraine and Britain. The resulting recital is not intended to have an overarching theme, instead it is one to dip into. Anchored by a sense of calm there are few extremes in the music. She wants the music to simply unfold, to meet people where they are at.
Her intention was not for the disc to focus on sacred music, that 'just happened'. She has served in many different organisations both churches and community-based ones, and she has found that choral music (particularly sacred music) is able to create a space for shared experience. And even for those of no faith, there is a feeling of spiritual comfort.
As an American conductor working with a British choir (where many of the singers also sing in established British choral groups), she felt that there was something of a transatlantic vision - the sound and blend from the UK alongside the expressive freedom and immediacy from the USA. A lot of the singers did not know all the repertoire on the disc, and they were able to share to together. Though she points out that the pieces by Lauridsen, Thompson and Paulus are all well-known in the USA. And whether familiar or not she hopes that is a beautiful offering that invites the listener to pause and reflect.
Alongside the Shepherd and the three American pieces there are other gems, something for everyone. She points out Alexander L'Estrange's Lighten our Darkness which she describes as a little gem. She describes as heartbreaking the way Ukrainian composer Hannah Havrylets died at the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Her piece, Prayer, was not published and Irene had to get permission from Havrylets's family.
Alongside her work at UIC, Irene guest conducts ensembles across the globe. Until a few years ago she was conducting a professional ensemble at an American mega-church, but the church decided to stop their classical choir. Irene paused and thought about what she could do next. She was working a lot in the UK and Europe, as well as talking to Signum, and she wanted to bring her American experience to the British landscape. The result was Meridian with them releasing their EP, Serenity in March 2025.
She describes her relationship with the choir as a two-way exchange: she feels her direction is very clear, and the singers give something back. There is a care and emotional openness too which really meets the repertoire, creating the heard of the recording. She has found the singers to be very disciplined, wanting to contribute to the recording so that it is very much a collaboration. They have another recording session scheduled for the end of July with lots of plans including a performance as part of Live from London, another EP featuring the music of Ola Gjeilo and Hildegard of Bingen, and another album. She is also creating the Meridian Choral Foundation which she feels is the next step in their trajectory.
The university is encouraging of her concert work and is supportive of her lending her time. As an academic she is immersed in finding choral repertoire, and she enjoys the way her work as a scholar goes hand in hand with lending herself to conducting opportunities.
She comes from a musical family and always wanted to be a conductor. At three years old she was conducting an ensemble made up of her sister and her stuffed animals! She grew up immersed in music, studying voice and instruments. Her parents were very supportive of her musical aspirations and though she was involved in opera and music theatre, it was conducting that drew her.
She also studied dance, doing ballet for a number of years and found this helpful because she became aware of gesture. And she still uses this when she teaches conductors.
Though she very much advocates for women in the profession, she is aware that she learned from men. She thinks it is important that she understands where she came from so that she can provide for future women conductors.
When studying her Masters and her Doctorate at UCLA her mentor was the conductor Donald Neuen. He remains a big influence, and she cites his commitment to excellence and his bringing of intention in every note. He helped her to commit to music in a way that she did not realise she needed. She also married a composer and through him, she came to understand how to honour and interpret a score and the will of the composer.
Finding Light
Meridian & Irene Messoloras
Signum Classics
available from 24 April.
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