MIDCOAST — The a cappella vocal ensemble VoXX: Voice of Twenty will present its annual winter concert series in four Maine venues in January and February.

The group’s 2020 program is titled “Exiles and Outcasts,” and features works from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Pieces are linked thematically, chosen because the composer perhaps lived in literal exile, or was an outcast by virtue of religion, race, gender, or sexuality; or because exile or alienation is the subject of the work.

The concerts feature works by Hildegard von Bingen, a twelfth-century abbess and mystic; Carlo Gesualdo, whose turbulent life and idiosyncratic harmonies make him the archetype of this theme; Claudio Monteverdi, whose unorthodox use of harmony and modes led to public condemnation; Salamone Rossi, an Jewish composer who lived and worked in Italy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, whose homosexuality and mental health challenges place him as an outsider; and Paul Hindemith, whose music was labeled “degenerate” by the Nazis.

Other works include a setting of the spiritual My Lord, What a Mornin’ by African-American composer Henry Burleigh; works by Victoria, Dowland, Rusca, Distler, and Rachmaninoff, and a setting of Amazing Grace that VOXX will ask the audience to join in singing.

VoXX will present four performances of Exiles and Outcasts:

Friday, Jan. 17, at 7 p.m, at the United Farmers Market, 18 Spring Street, Belfast, with a pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m.

Sunday, Jan. 19, at 2 p.m., at the Bowdoin College Chapel on the Bowdoin College campus, Brunswick.

Friday, Jan. 31, at 7 p.m., at Farnsworth Art Museum,16 Museum Street, Rockland, with a pre-concert talk at 6:30 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 1, at 2 p.m., St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bangor, with a pre-concert talk at 1:30 p.m.

Admission is $15, tickets available at the door.

Under 18 and college students, admission free.

“We wanted to tell some interesting and tragic stories about composers across the past four hundred years. More importantly, we wanted to leverage the power of music to reflect on the feelings of exile that many people still face around the world,” said Music Director Matt Smith, in a news release.

VoXX (formerly known as Ave Maris Stella) was formed at the beginning of this century as a group of early-music aficionados who met and sang in each other’s living rooms. Since then the group has grown in skill and ambition, retaining its early music focus but expanding its repertoire to encompass other eras up to and including the contemporary, according to VOXX.

VoXX has sung up and down the Maine coast, and generally performs two scheduled concert sets per year, in January and mid-summer. VoXX likes the challenges of unusual vocal music, yet more familiar works by such renowned composers as Britten, Byrd, Dufay, Holst, Josquin, Lauridsen, Victoria, and Vaughan Williams (not to mention Anonymous) are also central to the repertoire. VoXX mainly performs a cappella, but appropriate instrumentation (recorders, percussion, strings) is occasionally added.

VoXX is unusual in that it is a collectively run, all-volunteer organization. Membership is by audition, and singers come from all walks of life: teachers and students, professionals and retirees. Members can share in the responsibility of bringing music selections to the group and may take turns teaching and leading.

“The group has built a strong following and is well known for its efforts to inform audiences through extensive program notes,” said VOXX.

VoXX is available to perform by invitation.

Visit www.voiceoftwenty.com or call 207-518-0609 for more information.