Cantata Singers Announce 2017-18 Season

Cantata Singers is delighted to announce its 54th season, a season-long celebration honoring Music Director David Hoose's 35th anniversary with the organization.

"We are looking forward with great excitement to the 2017-2018 season, which marks our maestro David Hoose's 35th year with Cantata Singers," says Marcia Nizzari, Chair of Cantata Singers' Board of Trustees. "David continues to bring deep musical insight, enormous energy, and unique programming to our audiences."

The 54th season opens on November 4th, 2017 at 8pm in NEC's Jordan Hall with the U.S. premiere of Jan Dismas Zelenka's Missa Divi Xaverii, ZWV 12, alongside Mozart's Misericordias Domini and Haydn's Symphony No. 95 in C minor. Composed in 1729, Czech Baroque composer Zelenka's rarely performed issa Divi Xaverii was recently reconstruction, and has been called "one of his most lavishly orchestrated scores." The work is an uplifting take on the Orindary of the Latin Mass (without Credo). The troubling, conflicted sentiments of Mozart's Misericordias will contrast with the austereness of Haydn's Symphony No. 95, one of his "London" symphonies composed during his first visit to the city. Immediately following the concert, a soirée honoring David Hoose's 35th anniversary will take place in Brown Hall.

In December 2017, Cantata Singers will present a holiday program of English Seasonal Music for small chorus and instruments. The first performance will take place on Saturday, December 9th at 8pm in First Church, Cambridge. The second will be on Sunday, December 10th at 3pm in Powers Hall, Needham, in partnership with the Needham Bank Great Hall Concert Series.

The 54th season continues with the World Premiere of MIT-based composer Peter Child's Lamentations, Cantata Singers' 15th commission, on January 20th at 8pm in NEC's Jordan Hall. The text for the work is a new translation by poet David Rosenberg of the Lamentations from the Old Testament through a modern lens, speaking to such global issues such as immigration, genocide, and the refugee crisis. Paired with BWV 2, "Act Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein," a cantata never before performed by Cantata Singers in its 54-year history, and BWV 21, "Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis," this concert speaks to themes of displacement from one's homeland, the testing of one's faith, and the penultimate resolution found with acceptance.

Cantata Singers returns to Beethoven's Missa solemnis on March 16th at 8pm in NEC's Jordan Hall. Considered one of the most significant settings of the Latin mass alongside Bach's Mass in B minor, the Missa solemnis is a highly virtuosic work for chorus, orchestra, and vocal soloists. One of Beethoven's few religious works, the mass showcases the struggle between the immensity of God and the inadequacies of mankind. Arnold Schoenberg's powerful Psalm 130, De profundis, op. 50b will open the program.

The season concludes in May with two performances of a program featuring early and contemporary music. Tomás Luis de Victoria's Officium defunctorum and William Harris' Faire is the Heaven are paired with Estonian composer Arvo Pärt's Berliner Messe, performed in celebration of the 100th birthday of the Republic of Estonia. The first performance will take place on Saturday, May 12th at 8pm at First Church, Cambridge, and the second on Sunday, May 13th at 3pm at Church of the Covenant, Boston.

Cantata Singers will return to the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge for its three-concert Chamber Series. Led by Chamber Series Director Allison Voth, this season will continue to feature music that complements Cantata Singers mainstage series.

The first concert on Friday, November 17th, 2017 will feature music for voice and piano by Mozart Beethoven, and Haydn. The second, on Friday, February 2nd, 2018, will showcase South American and Spanish chamber music, while the final concert on Friday, April 6th, 2018 will celebrate the centennials of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania with "Chamber Music of the Baltic Nations." All programs begin at 7:30pm at the Academy, located at 136 Irving Street, Cambridge, MA.

54th Season subscriptions-which start at just $85 for the full season- are on sale now, and can be purchased online at www.cantatasingers.org, or by calling 617.868.5885. Single tickets will go on sale on September 1, 2017, and range in price from $25-$75.

For more information, contact Cantata Singers at 617.868.5885, or visit our website, www.cantatasingers.org.

About David Hoose

David Hoose's 35-year tenure with Cantata Singers has been marked by many accolades and honors. In 2016, David Hoose was awarded the Silver Jan Masaryk Honorary Medal for his and Cantata Singers' performances of music by Jan Dismas Zelenka by the Foreign Embassy of the Czech Republic. Mr. Hoose has also been honored by the Ballets Russes Arts Initiative for his contributions to the understanding and appreciation of culture from Eastern Europe, Russia, and the former USSR, as exemplified by his performances of Zelenka, Schnittke, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Gubaidulina, and Pärt. With Cantata Singers, Mr. Hoose is a recipient of the ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming, and he is recipient of Choral Arts New England's Alfred Nash Patterson Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Alice M. Ditson Conductors Award for the Advancement of American Music. He received the Dmitri Mitropoulos Award at the Tanglewood Music Center and, as a founding member of the Emmanuel Wind Quintet, was co-recipient of the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award. His recording with Collage New Music of John Harbison's Motetti di Montale was a GRAMMY-nominee for Best Recording with Small Ensemble. In addition to being Music Director of Cantata Singers for 35 years, David Hoose has been Music Director of Collage New Music for twenty-five years, and for eleven seasons he was Music Director of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Hoose has taught at the Longy School and at Brandeis University, and he is now Professor Emeritus at Boston University, where for twenty-nine years he taught conducting and was the School of Music's Director of Orchestras.

About Cantata Singers

A singular desire to bring to Boston's listeners music that isn't being heard anywhere else has inspired Cantata Singers' programming for 52 years.

In 1964, that music included the cantatas of J.S. Bach. Today, it may be hard for us to believe, but when Cantata Singers was founded in 1964, live performances of Bach cantatas were quite a rarity. In fact, Cantata Singers' early concerts featured the first Boston performances of many of the cantatas.

Bach's music, from the cantatas to the B-minor Mass to the Passions, remains an essential part of Cantata Singers' repertoire. However, the ensemble's repertoire has expanded to include music from the 17th century to today. Cantata Singers has commissioned 14 works for choir and orchestra-including one that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music-and has presented more than fifty Boston premieres of music both old and new.

Many of Boston's most talented musicians perform regularly with Cantata Singers. The chorus is made up of singers who have careers as musicians, educators, doctors, and architects. Many of these members appear as soloists with Cantata Singers, as well as with other highly respected organizations; some conduct other choruses and orchestras in the area. Although many of our musicians perform actively as solo singers, they choose to sing with Cantata Singers because of the reward they find in performing music of the choral canon at the highest possible level.

Cantata Singers has always focused on the music-be it by Bach, Verdi, Harbison, or Pärt-and its audiences do, too. Our audiences return year after year to hear fresh visions of iconic music, or an intriguing unfamiliar work that is-in fact-quite approachable. Each Cantata Singers concert is often surprising, sometimes challenging, always beautiful, and ultimately inspiring.

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