Max Richter looks set to achieve the highest UK chart position of his career with his pioneering ninth studio album Voices. Voices is currently sitting at number 14 the UK Midweek album chart above Mabel and Ed Sheeran and Max has already surpassed his previous first-week album sales in just three days.

Voices is the latest album from the innovative artist behind landmark composition SLEEP which debuted at number 44 in the UK album charts in 2015.

At the heart of VOICES is a profound sense of global community, born out of Richter’s career-long view of music as activism and his desire to unite audiences worldwide. Max commented. “In this challenging time, I’ve composed Voices as a place to reflect on the world we have made, and on the world we want to make”

Voices has already achieved widespread critical acclaim with positive reviews across the board. Uncut gave the album 9/10 praising it as “A timely reminder of global human rights”, Classic FM called the album “ A powerful musical reminder to pause and think” , Clash Magazine applauded the“Immersive, challenging and riveting” nature of the work and Louder than War concluded, “As our planet continues to burn Max Richter has created a moving and beautiful album”

In a time of dramatic global change, VOICES offers a musical message of hope. Max Richter invited people around the world to be part of the piece, crowd-sourcing readings of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be interwoven into the work, which features an ‘upside-down’ orchestra. He received hundreds of submissions in over 70 languages. These readings form the aural landscape that the music flows through: they are the VOICES of the title. Max commented, "It’s important to me that these Voices are not actors but real people. The readings are incredibly moving."

Alongside the album, BAFTA award winner Yulia Mahr has created breathtaking videos for the first two singles ‘All Human Beings’ and 'Mercy' . The videos offer a glimpse into a full audio visual project which will be announced later in the year. Richter and Mahr have worked together for over 25 years as part of Studio Richter Mahr, a collaborative home for their creative projects. At its core is the belief that creativity exists as a social project that can illuminate the lives of individuals and society as a whole, and that art exists beyond all boundaries.

Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, in the aftermath of the Second World War, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was drafted by a group of philosophers, artists and thinkers convened by Eleanor Roosevelt to address the great questions of the time. The voice of Roosevelt can be heard at the start of VOICES, as Richter incorporates the 1949 recording of the preamble to the Declaration into his piece. Alongside Roosevelt and the crowd-sourced VOICES, there is also narration by acclaimed US actor Kiki Layne (If Beale Street Could Talk) whose distinctive tones complement the choral, orchestral and electronic soundscape.

Max Richter explains, “I like the idea of a piece of music as a place to think, and it is clear we all have some thinking to do at the moment. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is something that offers us a way forward. Although it isn’t a perfect document, the declaration does represent an inspiring vision for the possibility of better and kinder world.”

VOICES is Max Richter’s ninth studio album, following on from such trailblazing recordings as Memoryhouse (2002), The Blue Notebooks (2004), Infra (2010), Recomposed: Vivaldi - The Four Seasons (2012) and most recently SLEEP (2015). Five years after it was released, SLEEP continues to be a global hit: it returned to No.1 on the US Billboard classical chart in March; it was broadcast in its entirety on international radio stations in April; and it has now earned over 450 million streams.

Max Richter continues to push the boundaries of music, art and technology – forging new creative paths to embrace listeners worldwide. These new projects are not only a showcase of his extraordinary talent, but also a call to contemplation and a celebration of community in changing times.