The Dmitri Ensemble was formed in 2004.  In their debut performance in the Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, the programme concluded with Dmitri Shostakovich's searing Chamber Symphony op.110a.  A stone's throw away from where such ensembles as The Monteverdi Choir and Polyphony had also given their founding concerts, the group became established and The Dmitri Ensemble was born.

Formed by violinist Laura Holmes, cellist Jess Jennings, and conductor Graham Ross, the group is centred around the initial core of a string ensemble.  Alongside performing stalwarts of the repertoire, The Dmitri Ensemble is passionate about presenting both unjustly neglected and newly-penned works.  It has worked alongside living composers including Giles Swayne, James MacMillan and Judith Bingham.

REVIEWS for James MacMillan Seven Last Words from the Cross (Naxos, 8.570719):

"The first thing that struck me about this recording is that [Ross] is as much interested in the orchestra as he is in the choir.  [Stephen] Layton's orchestra is fine (Hyperion), but one senses that it has been left rather in the shadow of the choir in which he feels totally in control.  Ross's orchestral detail shines and it transforms the work.  I find it to be a truly engaging performance which has an edge to it which is wholly lacking in Layton's manicured version.  Layton cannot endure the lengths of [MacMillan's] silences but Ross shows that they heighten the drama considerably.  The quality of all the orchestral playing is outstanding and the crucial final minutes of the work are simply mesmerising."
The Finzi Journal | Volume 26, No. 1, Summer 2009

Paul Spicer

"The Dmitri Ensemble under Graham Ross are simply magnificent, the singing and playing are utterly committed and cannot be more highly praised.  This is a masterpiece of our time perfectly captured by a profound performance."
Limelight Magazine | December 2009

Chris Latham

"An exceptional performance of MacMillan's masterpiece.  As far as posterity is concerned, performances like this confirm that Seven Last Words will be seen as a masterpiece. ... This is the work's third recording - following on from those under the composer himself and Stephen Layton - and, on balance, the most compelling and inexorable-sounding yet.  Graham Ross secures outstandingly fervent and finely disciplined results from the youthful Dmitri Ensemble, while the three remaining items are just as impressive. ... The disc is little short of a triumph in its combination of truthful sonority and wholly natural perspective.  Richly rewarding listening, all of it, and a classy 50th-birthday tribute to MacMillan."
Gramophone| September 2009 (Editor's Choice)

Andrew Achenbach

"This disc is in a class of its own.  I recall not really grasping the work on first hearing it, finding it rather diffuse, and though repeated listenings brought it more into focus, this recording shows exactly what was missing - that very physical sense of being inside the music.  There is a tremendous immediacy to The Dmitri Ensemble's performance, a tautness to the instrumental work and a feeling of intimacy in the vocal sound. ... There is also a very effective balancing of the knife-edge of sweetness with organum-like austerity. ... It can rarely have been performed as movingly, but not cloyingly, as this. ... An essential contribution to the MacMillan discography."
International Record Review| July 2009

Ivan Moody

"Anyone looking for an alternative to the usual diet of Passiontide choral music could do a lot worse than turn to this inspired and inspiring CD of MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross, together with three shorter independent pieces, two of which here receive their first recordings.  The Dmitri Ensemble, under conductor Graham Ross, rises ably to the challenges of MacMillan’s sound world.  The disc provides a fitting tribute to the composer, 50 this year. * * * *"
Choir & Organ | July 2009

Philip Reed

"Considering the many excellences of the included shorter works, this wonderful album by the newly formed Dmitri Ensemble—celebrating the composer's 50th birthday—may easily turn out to be the preferred medium for buyers to acquaint themselves with this seminal, and fabulous, piece of music.  Don't end the year without making its acquaintance!

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Audiophile Audition | June 2009

Steven Ritter

"The work of the youth-based Dmitri Ensemble comes with a ringing endorsement from James MacMillan himself, and within a few seconds of Seven Last Words from the Cross it becomes clear why.  Singing and playing are polished, focused and alert; but it‘s the controlled intensity that’s most striking here.  The first movement’s lamenting string figure – like the hushed breathing of the sea – carries an emotional charge out of all proportion to its apparent means.  Above it the chorus’s chanting, keening figures grow steadily in power: the sense of a strong sustained line behind the men’s overlapping speech-like comments is potent.  The massive block-like chords of ‘Woman Behold Thy Son!’ are impressive enough, but the silences between them are still more gripping.  And the contrast between the sweet Celtic-inflected lyricism of ‘Verily, I say unto you’ and the uncompromising non-tonal harshness of ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani?’ has never been made quite so forcefully in my experience.  Nor has the journey of Seven Last Words ever seemed to be over so quickly – at the same time urging one to reflect on why these words (and those of the three shorter pieces) can still mean something even to faithless ears.   Until now I’ve been happy enough with the Polyphony version on Hyperion, but in comparison with The Dmitri Ensemble’s contained heat it now sounds just a little cool.  The Naxos recording too is outstanding, with the church acoustic savoured but never allowed to swamp details.

Performance * * * * * / Recording * * * * *"
BBC Music Magazine | June 2009 (Critic's Choice)

Stephen Johnson

"An inspiring performance from a young British ensemble of admirable contemplation and commitment.  The French composer Arthur Honegger expressed an aim to ‘write a music which would be understandable to the great majority of listeners and at the same time sufficiently free of banality to interest the connoisseurs’.  Today, that description easily applied to the music of Scottish composer James MacMillan, celebrating his fiftieth birthday this year, and this recording is a fitting birthday present.  Vocal tone and diction are sonorously clear, textures transparent, and the passion of the cross almost palpably evident.  The addition of a previously unrecorded motet, the contemplative Nemo te condemnavit, is a special treat.  I didn’t want this to end. 4.5 / * * * * *"
Classic FM Magazine | June 2009

"Fine performances by the Dmitri Ensemble, conducted by Graham Ross."
St Petersburg Times | May 2009

Geoffrey Norris

"MacMillan deploys a rich palette of harmony in evoking both anguish and consolation.  But the variety of means is underpinned by the music's seamless strand of emotional sincerity, establishing, in this radiant performance, a profoundly affecting balance between awe and dramatic, human narrative.  * * * * * "
The Telegraph | April 2009

John Fleming

"Graham Ross, with his outstanding choir and string ensemble on this, their debut disc, gets right into the heart, soul and spirit of MacMillan's great work.  Of course it's a sacred piece, but Ross and The Dmitri Ensemble bring to the music exactly the human and emotional dimensions critically missing in Layton's earlier recording.  The balance of string and choral forces is infinitely better, with greater clarity of text and texture, a richer, more vibrant sound, and a compelling and deeply authoritative emotional commitment.  It's all very well having a masterpiece on your hands, but it has to have masterly forces to bring it off the page into sound and into life.  And this is exactly what this impressive group does in this gripping, harrowing, beautiful and profoundly moving account.  Like me, you may not have heard of The Dmitri Ensemble before.  We know them now.  The message about this new disc is unequivocal: get it.  It's an amazing performance."
The Glasgow Herald | March 2009

Michael Tumelty