Cantata Singers Celebrate Holidays With A SEASONAL CELEBRATION

Celebrate the holidays with Cantata Singers with A Seasonal Celebration, featuring works by Lassus, Victoria, Monteverdi, Schütz, Biber, Distler, and Schoenberg.

Cantata Singers, one of Boston's leading choral-orchestral performing arts organizations will be performing these works on Friday, December 16, 2016 at 8pm in Cary Hall, 1605 Massachusetts Avenue, Lexington, MA; and Saturday, December 17, 2016 at 8pm in St. Paul Church, 29 Mt. Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA.

Pre-concert talks at 7:00pm with Scott Allen Jarrett, Director of Music at Marsh Chapel and Music Director of the Back Bay Chorale. Post-concert reception free to all ticketholders

Tickets: $25-$69, can be purchased by calling 617-868-5885 or visiting www.cantatasingers.org

Cantata Singers rings in the holidays with a program that melds music old and new, bridging 400 years of music created for this season of celebration. Featuring works by Lassus, Victoria, Monteverdi, Schütz, Biber, Distler, and Schoenberg, two performances of A Seasonal Celebration will be held on Friday, December 16, 2016 at 8:00pm at Cary Hall in Lexington, and on Saturday, December 17, 2016 at 8:00pm at St. Paul Church in Cambridge. This will be the first of two programs that Cantata Singers will present in Cary Hall during the 2016-2017 season.

Hugo Distler's (1908-1942) sublime choral variations on the popular German holiday carol "Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen" come from his larger work, Die Weihnachtsgeschichte or The Christmas Story, while Arnold Schoenberg's uplifting Friede auf Erden also describes the Nativity story. The remaining portion of the program features early music, including two motets by Heinrich Schütz, Claudio Monteverdi's "Laetatus sum" and "Gloria a 7," and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's "The Annunciation" from Rosary Sonatas.

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 53 years. J.S. 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.

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.