Surprisingly powerful and extremely moving, THE PRAYER CYCLE from Jonathan Elias is an album of harmonic voices singing in unison of the joy and pain that exists in our world. The album consists of nine movements, each fleshed out by the lush baroque instrumentation of the English Chamber Orchestra. The album’s main attraction, however, is the vocals. Quite the diverse line-up, the album features Alanis Morissette singing in Hungarian and French, Malian singer Salif Keita, late superstars Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Ofra Haza, Linda Ronstadt, the beautiful sounds of the American Boy Choir and many others. Despite the marquee names, nobody grandstands on this album – it’s a group effort, a choral work for the new millennium that conveys passionate spirituality without focusing on any particular religion.