St. Charles Singers' 2019-2020 Season To Include World Premiere Of Work By Composer Jake Runestad

The St. Charles Singers has announced plans for its 36th concert season, which will include the world premiere of "Love Song for Cello," a new choral work by acclaimed American composer Jake Runestad.

The mixed-voice professional chamber choir, led by founder and music director Jeffrey Hunt, will open its season with a late-August Mozart Festival in St. Charles, Illinois, followed by December "Candlelight Carols" concerts in Chicago and St. Charles, and concluding with April concerts titled "Kaleidoscope," also in Chicago and St. Charles, featuring Runestad's "Love Song for Cello" and other songs written for the St. Charles Singers by prominent composers.

Mozart Festival

The St. Charles Singers' Mozart Festival offers free and paid events August 22-25 spotlighting music of Classical-era composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

The festival begins at 7 p.m. on Thursday, August 22, with a dress rehearsal, free and open to the public, for the Mozart Journey XV concert program, performed by the choir and Metropolis Chamber Orchestra. The rehearsal will take place in the concert venue, Baker Memorial United Methodist Church, 307 Cedar Avenue, St. Charles. No reservations are required.

During rehearsal breaks, choirmaster Hunt will discuss concert preparations.

"This is designed to be an enlightening, behind-the-scenes experience for all choral-music lovers and anyone curious about choral singing at the highest professional level," Hunt says.

The festival's centerpiece is the Mozart Journey XV concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, August 23, and again at 4 p.m. Sunday, August 25, at Baker Church. It's the fifteenth and newest program in the choir and orchestra's multi-season initiative, launched in 2010, to perform Mozart's complete genre of sacred choral music.

"Many listeners find this music as exquisite as Mozart's symphonic, operatic and chamber works, but these compositions are, for the most part, less well-known and some are rarely, if ever, heard," Hunt says.

The program includes the three-movement offertory "Benedictus sit Deus," K. 117, which was played at the world premiere of Mozart's "Domincus" Mass in C Major K. 66, which is also on the concert program; and the German passion aria "Kommet her, ihr frechen Sunder" in B-flat Major, K. 146.

The "Dominicus" Mass is lavishly scored for soprano, alto, tenor and bass soloists; four-part choir; winds; brass; strings; organ; and percussion.

Audiences will also hear fragments of Mozart's uncompleted sacred choral works, including the Kyrie in C Major, K. 323.

A pre-concert lecture will be offered one hour before each Mozart Journey XV performance.

St. Charles Singers soprano Meredith Taylor DuBon, a licensed yoga instructor, will lead a free, outdoor "Yoga to Mozart" session at 9 a.m. Saturday, August 24, on First Street Plaza, 29 S. First Street, St. Charles. Recordings of Mozart's music will provide a sonic backdrop for the yoga workout, suitable for all skill levels.

The St. Charles Singers will stage a "Midday Mozart Garden Party and Brunch" 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. August 24 at the historic Hotel Baker, 100 W. Main Street, St. Charles.

The Metropolis Chamber Ensemble will open the program with instrumental music of Mozart and two composers he admired: Joseph Michael Haydn, younger brother of the famed Franz Joseph Haydn, and Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. Works will include Mozart's Quartet in D Major for flute and strings, K. 285; J. M. Haydn's Divertimento in C Major, P. 115, for English horn, violin, cello and double bass; J.C. Bach's Quintet in D Major, Op. 11, No. 6, and other pieces.

Following the concert will be a luncheon and conversation with choirmaster Hunt.

The event concludes with intimate performances by the St. Charles Singers Choral Ensemble, featuring choir members in solos, duets, and other small groupings.

Tickets, which include lunch, are $75 per person.

Candlelight Carols: Mystery, Hope and Wonder, Joy

The 2019 edition of the St. Charles Singers' "Candlelight Carols" concert program, a Yuletide tradition since the choir's founding in 1984, will, for the first time, present seasonal songs grouped by themes: mystery, hope and wonder, and joy.

The choir will explore mystery through John Tavener's "O Mary Theotokos," Tim Brown's arrangement of "Mari? wiegenlied," Jan Vander Roost's arrangement of "The Silver Stars," Philip Ledger's arrangement of "Adam lay ybounden," Richard Lloyd's "Love Came Down at Christmas," and Simon Preston's "There Is No Rose."

Hope and wonder will be represented by Peter Warlock's "Benedicamus Domino," Paul Edwards' "No Small Wonder," Percy Grainger's "There Was a Pig Went Out to Dig," the traditional "Children's Song of the Nativity," Mårten Janssen's arrangement of "Est ist ein ros' entsprungen," Robert Boyd's arrangement of "I Wonder as I Wander," Ola Gjeilo's arrangement of "Away in a Manger," and the traditional "Silent Night."

Illustrating the theme of joy are John Gardner's "A Gallery Carol" and "Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day," Christopher Robinson's "Rejoice and Be Merry," John Rutter's "Angels' Carol," Cecilia McDowall's "Now May We Singen," and Ben Parry's "Jingle Bells."

The choir will perform "Candlelight Carols" at 7:30 p.m. Friday, December 6, at Baker Church in St. Charles; 7:30 p.m. Saturday, December 7, at Fourth Presbyterian Church, 126 E. Chestnut St., Chicago; and 3 p.m. on Sunday, December 8, at Baker Church, St. Charles.

'Kaleidoscope' of Commissions April 18-19

Runestad's "Love Song for Cello," highlight of the St. Charles Singers' season-finale "Kaleidoscope" concerts, is a setting for choir and cello of poet and librettist Todd Boss's adaptation of the Dorianne Laux poem "Cello."

Runestad, a Rockford, Illinois, native based in Minneapolis, is an award-winning and frequently performed composer of "highly imaginative" (Baltimore Sun) and "stirring and uplifting" (Miami Herald) musical works. The Chicago Tribune said "Runestad writes beautifully for massed voices" and added, "No wonder he's considered one of the best of the younger American choral composers."

Runestad and Boss's previous choral collaborations received high praise.

Guest cellist for this world-premiere performance will be British-born, San Diego-based Sophie Webber, an award-winning musician who studied with legendary cellist Janos Starker at Indiana University, where she earned her doctorate in cello performance.

The program includes two other works written for the St. Charles Singers: celebrated English composer John Rutter's setting of William Shakespeare's romantic Sonnet No. 18, "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?" which the choir premiered in 2018; and jazz pianist-composer George Shearing's "Who is Silvia?" based on lines from Shakespeare's play "The Gentlemen of Verona."

Other works include Ola Gjeilo's "Serenity," Arvo P?rt's "O Weischeit," ?riks Ešenvalds' "Ancient Prairie," Bob Chilcott's "Because It Was You," Rossino Montavano's "Lirum bililirum," Fredrick Sixten's "Alleluia," Benjamin Britten's "Five Flower Songs," Op. 47, Rutter's "Five Childhood Lyrics," and two movements from cellist Webber's choral arrangement of Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major.

"The concert will be a mosaic of sounds, reflecting events and emotions we all share at one time or another," choirmaster Hunt says.

"Kaleidoscope" will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 18, at Old St. Patrick's Church, 700 W. Adams, Chicago; and 3 p.m. Sunday, April 19, at Baker Church in St. Charles.

Single admission to the each of the St. Charles Singers' principal concerts is $40 for adults, $35 for seniors 65 and older, and $10 for students. Season subscriptions are $96 for adults and $84 for seniors. Group discounts are available.

Tickets and information are available at www.stcharlessingers.com or by calling (630) 513-5272. Tickets are also available at Townhouse Books, 105 N. Second Ave., St. Charles (checks or cash only at this ticket venue). Tickets may also be purchased at the door on the day of the concert, depending on availability.

Founded and directed by Jeffrey Hunt, the St. Charles Singers is a professional chamber choir dedicated to choral music in all its forms. The mixed-voice ensemble of 30-plus voices includes professional singers, choral directors, and voice instructors, some of whom perform with other top-tier Chicago choirs.
ClassicsToday.com has called the ensemble "one of North America's outstanding choirs," citing "charisma and top-notch musicianship" that "bring character and excitement to each piece." The Chicago Tribune has described the St. Charles Singers as "splendidly disciplined, beautifully responsive" and proclaimed, "Chamber chorus singing doesn't get much better than this." Among the St. Charles Singers' prominent guest conductors have been English composer John Rutter, founder of the Cambridge Singers; Philip Moore, composer and former music director at England's York Minster cathedral; and Grammy Award-winning American choir director Craig Hella Johnson. The choir launched in St. Charles in 1984 as the Mostly Madrigal Singers.

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