Chanticleer’s 2002 album Our American Journey is inducted into National Recording Registry of Library of Congress; Ensemble concludes season with family-friendly Bay Area tour
(April 2025) — Multiple Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer – lauded by the Boston Globe as “breathtaking in its accuracy of intonation, purity of blend, of color and swagger of style” – recently received an unexpected honor, when the Library of Congress selected the ensemble’s 2002 album Our American Journey for induction to the National Recording Registry. A Warner Classics release, the album is available for streaming here.
Over the weeks ahead, Chanticleer completes its nationwide “Without a Song” tour, exploring the power of music through the ages, before concluding its Bay Area season with a family-friendly program: “Chanticleer and the Fox: An Evening of Renaissance Music Theater.”
Our American Journey in National Recording Registry
Created in 2000 by the Library of Congress to preserve works deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant,” the National Recording Registry now contains nearly 700 titles. This year’s additions include albums by Tracy Chapman, Miles Davis, Elton John, and Amy Winehouse, as well as by Chanticleer. Our American Journey – the ensemble’s 25th recording, released to mark its 25th anniversary season – combines original commissions with traditional American songs and music from the Latin American Baroque. The group’s President & General Director, Philip Wilder, a former Chanticleer countertenor, is one of those heard on the album.
Chanticleer in 2002
“Without a Song”
Chanticleer continues to tour its “Without a Song” program across the United States. Repertoire includes medieval and Renaissance music by Francesco Landini and Orlando di Lasso, a new work by Ayanna Woods, the group’s Grammy-nominated 2023-24 composer-in-residence, and an original arrangement of the jazz standard “Without a Song” by Stacey V. Gibbs. Music Director Tim Keeler explains:
“Part of what makes our job so beautiful and invigorating is getting to share the joy and power of music with audiences around the world. We feel their excitement from the stage. In ‘Without a Song,’ we lean into that joy and consider just how essential music is to our everyday life. It provides us with inspiration, comfort, tears, and smiles.”
Ayanna Woods’s music was also featured last season in “Music of a Silent World.” A program centered around Majel Connery’s The Rivers are our Brothers, a song cycle about ecological responsibility, this included “I miss you like I miss the trees,” in which Woods addresses the all-too-topical subject of wildfires.
Excerpt from “Music of a Silent World”
“Chanticleer and the Fox: An Evening of Renaissance Music Theater”
Adapted from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chanticleer and the Fox is a Caldecott-winning children’s book about the rooster Chanticleer, who outwits a cunning fox to save his barnyard friends. The Chanticleer ensemble pairs this story with Renaissance motets and madrigals in “Chanticleer and the Fox: An Evening of Renaissance Music Theater,” a program suitable for audiences of all ages, in five cities around the group’s Bay Area home (June 7–13).
Remaining dates of 2024–25 season
National tour
April 23: Kennett Square, PA (Unionville High School)
April 25: Baltimore, MD (First & Franklin Presbyterian Church)
April 26: Glassboro, NJ (Rowan University, Marie Rader Presenting Series)
April 27: Southport, CT (Trinity Episcopal Church)
May 10: Santa Monica, CA (BroadStage)
May 11: La Jolla, CA (St. James by-the-Sea Episcopal Church)
May 12: Palm Desert, CA (St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church)
May 17: New York, NY (Frederick P. Rose Hall – Lincoln Center)
May 18: Washington, DC (National Cathedral Choral Society)
Bay Area program: “Chanticleer and the Fox”
June 7: San Francisco, CA (Noe Valley Ministry, 2 shows)
June 8: Sacramento, CA (St. John’s Lutheran)
June 10: Santa Clara, CA (Mission Santa Clara)
June 12: Mill Valley, CA (Mt. Tamalpais United Methodist Church)
June 13: Berkeley, CA (First Church)
Summer 2025
July 11: Campbellford, ON (The Barn – Westben Centre)
July 12: Ottawa, ON (Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre)
July 16: Elora, ON (Gambrel Barn – Elora Festival)
July 18: Katonah, NY (Spanish Courtyard – Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts)
July 24: Teton Village, WY (Walk Festival Hall – Grand Teton Music Festival)