CHANTICLEER ANNOUNCES 2009-10 SEASON
SAN FRANCISCO, August 10, 2009 – Called “stunningly expert”
by the New Yorker,
and named 2008 Ensemble of the Year by Musical America, Chanticleer will give more than 100 concerts in the United States, Europe and
China during its 32nd season. In addition to its far-ranging touring activities,
Chanticleer’s ongoing and extensive education program will be especially prominent this
season, reaching new heights with Chanticleer’s first National Youth Choral
Festival™. The climactic event in the four-day festival
will be “The Singing Life” at San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall on March 29, 2010. At this extraordinary event, Chanticleer
will perform with a dozen invited high school choirs comprising more than 300
students from the Bay Area and across the country. “The Singing Life” is part of Chanticleer’s expanded season
in its home territory, where it will present three other new programs: “In Time
Of… Songs of Love & Loss, War & Peace,” “A Chanticleer Christmas,”
and “For Thy Soul’s Salvation: Music for England’s Monarchs.”
In addition to Chanticleer Youth Choral Festivals™ in the
Bay Area and around the country, the ensemble regularly gives in-school clinics
and workshops, master-classes for university students nationwide, and the
Chanticleer in Sonoma summer workshop for adult choral singers. This
season, the group will preside over eleven interactive educational events beginning on September 30 in
Rockford, Illinois; one such event in Vienna, Austria, in January precedes a
third return performance by the ensemble at the renowned Musikverein. Regional Youth Choral Festivals™ will also be held in San Francisco,
CA (October 23), Darien, CT (March 9) and Lima, Ohio (April 23). Chanticleer will also participate in
and perform at two meetings of the American Choral Director’s Association
(ACDA): the Central Division conference in
Cincinnati, OH (February 25, 26) and the Western Division conference in Tucson,
AZ (March 4 and 5).
Chanticleer’s mission and remarkable ability to inspire
young singers from across America was documented last season in The
Singing Life,
which has aired extensively on public television stations and is now available
on DVD. The ensemble began its
education program (originally called “Singing in the Schools”) in 1986, and
with the help of individual contributions and foundation and corporate support,
the program has evolved and grown substantially.
As well as giving concerts in and around San Francisco’s Bay
area, Chanticleer will continue its far-ranging touring activities throughout
the new season. Criss-crossing
America from coast to coast, Chanticleer will perform in cities and venues both
large and small, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Los Angeles’s Walt Disney
Concert Hall during
its annual holiday tour, as well as spring concerts in Philadelphia’s
Verizon Hall and Boston’s
Jordan Hall. Chanticleer’s first concerts in the
New Year will be in Europe, where the ensemble will perform in 16 cities from Paris (January 22) and Amsterdam’s famed Concertgebouw (February 3) to Bohemia (January 27,
28, 29) and the Baltics (Riga, Latvia, on February 8 and Vilnius, Lithuania on
February 10). For the second
season running, Chanticleer will perform in China, this year giving multiple
performances at the Shanghai’s Expo 2010 (June 11-14).
In the Bay Area, where the group is based, Chanticleer expands its offerings,
presenting four unique programs this season. The 24 ‘home’ concerts will bring
the ensemble to five new local venues. The first program, “In Time Of… Songs
of Love & Loss, War & Peace”, showcases Chanticleer’s trademark versatility in an exploration
of music through the centuries inspired by the most profound human experiences,
from Renaissance masters such Palestrina, Dufay and Janequin to modern works by
composers such as Ligeti, Chen Yi, Sametz, McGlynn, Bates, Gershwin and others.
“In time of…” will be
Chanticleer’s main touring program this season.
“A
Chanticleer Christmas”, always the group’s most popular program, returns with 25 performances
beginning in Fairfax, VA on November 28.
With its beautiful blend of traditional carols, medieval and Renaissance
sacred works, and lively spirituals, the program has become a holiday classic
across the country, documented on a number of best-selling recordings and a DVD
recorded at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and broadcast widely on
public television. A writer for the New Yorker summed it up succinctly: “No one does a better choral Christmas
than the virtuoso male voices of Chanticleer.”
Spring
offerings include “The Singing Life”, the National Youth Choral Festival™ performance at Davies
Symphony Hall (March 29), and “For Thy Soul’s Salvation: Music for England’s
Monarchs”, surveying
16th– and 17th-century music by William Byrd, Thomas
Tallis, Robert Parsons, Henry Purcell and others, written at the time of the
Tudor and Stuart monarchies.
After 15 years under exclusive contract to Warner Records, Chanticleer
will start in 2009
to release recordings in collaboration with several distributors. In October, Best
of Chanticleer,
a compilation featuring three new tracks, will be released by Rhino. Chanticleer’s discography currently boasts
26 titles. Its most recent
recording for Warner, a CD+DVD release entitled The Mission Road, explored California’s vibrant
mission period two centuries ago and was, like so many of its recordings, a Billboard bestseller. The Mission Road DVD aired on a number of public
television stations. Colors of Love (2000)and the world-premiere recording of
Sir John Tavener’s Lamentations and Praises (2002) were Grammy® Award-winners.
Chanticleer’s long-standing commitment to commissioning and
performing new music was recognized in 2008 by the ASCAP/Chorus America
Award for Adventurous Programming for the 2006-07 season, in which the group premiered ten
new works. To date, the group has
commissioned 70 composers; past commissions include works by Mark Adamo, Chen
Yi, Régis Campo, David Conte, Douglas J. Cuomo, Brent Michael Davids, Anthony
Davis, Kamran Ince, Guido López-Gavilán, William Hawley, Jake Heggie, Jackson
Hill, Jeeyoung Kim, Tania León, Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, Michael McGlynn, John Musto,
Shulamit Ran, Bernard Rands, Steven Sametz, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierez, Paul
Schoenfield, Steven Stucky, John Tavener, Augusta Read Thomas, and Janika
Vandervelde.
Chanticleer’s
previous season had many highlights, including the group’s induction, in
October 2008, into the Classical Music Hall of Fame in Cincinnati, OH. In December, while on tour across the country with its
beloved “A Chanticleer Christmas” program, the group made its fourth
consecutive yearly appearance on NBC’s Today show. In March, to celebrate its 31st season,
Chanticleer performed the world premieres of works by Mason Bates, Shawn Crouch
and Tarik O’Regan (three composers in their thirties) to great acclaim. The group’s debut tour of China followed in May, with Chanticleer
giving performances in five cities.
A summer tour featured the group’s debut in Ireland and return
engagements in Germany and France.
Named for
the “clear-singing” rooster in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chanticleer was founded in 1978 by
tenor Louis A. Botto, who sang with the group until 1989 and served as Artistic
Director until his death in 1997.
In 1999, Christine Bullin joined Chanticleer as President and General
Director. In 2008, Matthew Oltman, a tenor who sang for ten years with the
ensemble, was named Music Director. Long-time Music Director Joseph Jennings,
who joined the ensemble as a countertenor in 1983, and shortly thereafter
assumed the title of Music Director, retired at the end of the 2008-09 season
and was named Music Director Emeritus.
Chanticleer
is the recipient of major grants from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation,
the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, the
Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the James
Irvine Foundation, The Hearst Foundation, the Bernard Osher Foundation, Wells
Fargo Bank, Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, and the National
Endowment for the Arts. Chanticleer’s
activities as a not-for-profit corporation are supported by its administrative
staff and Board of Trustees.
A list of
Chanticleer’s fall 2009 engagements follow below. Chanticleer’s full season calendar and other information is
available at www.chanticleer.org
Chanticleer’s fall
2009 concerts and education events
September
15 San Luis Obispo, CA Concert
– Mission San Luis Obispo, 8PM
16 Carmel, CA Concert
– Carmel Mission, 8PM
17 Santa Clara, CA Concert – Mission
Santa Clara, 8PM
19 Napa, CA Concert
– Napa Valley Opera House, 8PM
20 Livermore,
CA Concert
– Livermore Performing Arts Center, 3PM
22 Walnut Creek, CA Concert
– Lesher Center for the Perf. Arts, 8pm
27 Sacramento, CA Concert
– St. Francis Church, 5PM
30 Rockford,
IL Interactive
educational event
October
1 Rockford,
IL Interactive
educational event
1 Rockford,
IL Concert
– Mendelssohn Center, 7:30PM
2 Valparaiso,
IN Concert
– Valparaiso University Chapel, 8PM
4 Granville
OH Interactive
educational event
4 Granville,
OH Concert
– Swasey Chapel, 4PM
5 Akron,
OH Interactive
educational event
6 Akron,
OH Interactive
educational event
6 Akron,
OH Concert
– TBA, TBA
7 Akron,
OH Chanticleer
Youth Choral Festival
9 Houghton,
NY Concert
– TBA, TBA
11 Poughkeepsie,
NY Interactive
educational event
11 Poughkeepsie,
NY Concert
– TBA, TBA
23 San
Francisco, CA Chanticleer
Youth Choral Festival, 10AM
26 Tulsa,
OK Concert
– Branch Theater, TBA
27 Fayetteville,
AR Interactive
educational event, 2:30PM
27 Fayetteville,
AR Concert
– Walton Arts Center, TBA
29 Waco,
TX Concert
– Baylor University, TBA
30 Houston,
TX Private
Event
November
2 Ft.
Worth TX Interactive
educational event
3 Ft.
Worth, TX Concert
– Bass Concert Hall, 7:30PM
5 Santa
Fe, NM Interactive
educational event
5 Santa
Fe, NM Concert
– Lensic Theater, 7:30PM
7 Ogden,
UT Concert
– Weber State University, TBA
9 Wickenburg,
AZ Interactive
educational event
10 Wickenburg,
AZ Concert
– TBA, TBA
28 Fairfax,
VA Concert
– George Mason University, 8PM
29 S.
Orange, NJ Concert
– S. Orange PAC, 7PM
30 New
York, NY Concert
– Metropolitan Museum, 6:30PM
30 New
York, NY Concert
– Metropolitan Museum, 8:30PM
December
1 New
York, NY Concert
– Metropolitan Museum, 6:30PM
1 New
York, NY Concert
– Metropolitan Museum, 8:30PM
1 New
York, NY Private
Event
3 New
York, NY Concert
– Metropolitan Museum, 6:30PM
3 New
York, NY Concert
– Metropolitan Museum , 8:30PM
5 Westhampton
Beach, NY Concert –
Westhampton Beach PAC, TBA
7 Chicago,
IL Concert
– 4th Presbyterian Church, 8PM
8 Chicago,
IL Concert
– 4th Presbyterian Church, 8PM
10 Stanford,
CA Concert
– Memorial Church, 8PM
12 Oakland, CA Concert
– Cathedral of
Christ the Light, 8:15PM
13 San Francisco, CA Concert
– St Ignatius
Church, 8PM
15 Petaluma, CA Concert
– St Vincent
Church, 6PM
15 Petaluma, CA Concert
– St Vincent
Church, 8:30PM
16 Berkeley, CA Concert
– First
Congregational Church, 8PM
17 Los
Angeles, CA Concert
– Walt Disney Concert Hall, 8PM
17 Los
Angeles, CA Private
Event, 10PM
19 San Francisco, CA Concert
– St Ignatius
Church, 8PM
20 Davis, CA Concert
– Mondavi
Center, 5PM
21 Carmel, CA Concert
– Carmel
Mission, 6PM
21 Carmel, CA Concert
– Carmel
Mission, 8:30PM
22 Santa Clara, CA Concert
– Mission Santa
Clara, 6PM
22 Santa Clara, CA Concert
– Mission Santa
Clara, 8:30PM
23 Livermore,
CA Concert
– Livermore PAC, 8PM
ALL
DATES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.
Bay
Area Subscription Season concerts denoted in bold-face type.
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© 21C Media Group, August 2009