Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Grammy Award-winning A Cappella Group Chanticleer Debuts at the Kimmel Center, April 7

MARCH 22, 2010


Chanticleer

“The singing of Chanticleer is breathtaking in its accuracy of intonation, purity of blend, variety of color and swagger of style.” — The Boston Globe

 

“America’s favorite choral ensemble.” —The New Yorker

 

Grammy award-winning classical vocal ensemble Chanticleer makes its Kimmel Center debut on Wednesday, April 7, 2010. The ensemble’s 12 male voices, ranging from countertenor to bass, are internationally renowned for their versatile interpretations of vocal literature—from Renaissance to jazz, gospel to daring new music. Named 2008  Ensemble of the Year by Musical America,  their latest album release, The Best of Chanticleer (2009), is a compilation of the ensemble’s 20 plus recordings along with new recordings of Mahler’s Ich bin der Welt, Gershwin’s Summertime, and Crouch’s Lullaby.

 

Currently on a 21-city tour in the United States, their 2009-10 season also includes performances in 12 foreign countries including an upcoming June performance at the Expo 2010 at Shanghai, China, as well as recent performances at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Vienna’s Musikverein, and Prague’s Rudolfinum.

 

Tickets for Chanticleer are available for $36 and $44 and can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999, online at www.kimmelcenter.org, or at the Kimmel Center box office, open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and later on performance evenings. (Additional fees may apply.) For group sales call 215-790-5883.

 

San Francisco-based Chanticleer is known world-wide as “an orchestra of voices.”  The ensemble made their fifth annual appearance on the NBC TODAY show in 2009 with a performance of A Chanticleer Christmas, also performed around the Bay Area and broadcast on over 225 national public radio stations.  In March, Chanticleer performed “The Singing Life,” a concert with 300 high school singers participating in the National Youth Choral Festival at Davies Hall.

 

Chanticleer’s recordings include Let it Snow (2007), a collection of Christmas music which topped the Billboard charts for twelve weeks; Colors of Love, winner of the 2000 Grammy award for Best Small Ensemble Performance and Contemporary A Cappella Recording Award for Best Classical Album; and, the world-premiere recording of Sir John Tavener’s Lamentations and Praises (2002), winner of two Grammy awards for Classical Best Small Ensemble Performance and Best Classical Contemporary Composition. Chanticleer’s most recent DVD release, Mission Road, has been broadcast on public television, following after the 2008 documentary release of The Singing Life, which chronicled Chanticleer’s work with youth in the 2007 Youth Choral Festival™

 

The ensemble was founded in 1978 by tenor Louis Botto, who sang in the ensemble until 1989 and served as artistic director until his death in 1997. Reigning tenor in the ensemble for 10 years, Matthew Oldman was named music director in 2008, replacing Joseph H. Jennings who became Music Director Emeritus in 2009.

 

Kimmel Center Presents 2009/10 Season is sponsored by Citi. American Airlines is the Official Airline of Kimmel Center Presents.

 

Free at the Kimmel programming and subsidized tickets offered to the community and social service groups for $10 are made possible through the Wachovia Gateway to the Arts Community Access Program, supported by a generous grant from the Wachovia Foundation.

 

The Kimmel Center is a recipient of partnership funding through the nationally recognized PNC “Grow Up Great” initiative, a ten-year, $100 million investment preparing children for success in school and life. Funding gives support to the Kimmel Center’s early childhood program “Bop and Swing,” an arts program for children 1-5 years old, designed to promote an appreciation for American culture.

 

KIMMEL CENTER PRESENTS SPONSORED BY CITI

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 | 8pm
Verizon Hall

 

Chanticleer

 

Dylan Hostetter, soprano

Michael McNeil, soprano

Gregory Peebles, soprano

Cortez Mitchell, alto

Alan Reinhardt, alto

Adam Ward, alto

Matthew Curtis, tenor

Brian Hinman, tenor

Ben Jones, tenor

Eric Alatorre, baritone and bass

Gabriel Lewis-O’Connor, baritone and bass

Jace Wittig, baritone and bass

 

Matthew Oltman, Music Director

 

Program:

 

Orlando Gibbons: Hosanna to the Son of David

Sethus Calvisius: Unser Leben währet siebzig Jahr

Plainchant: Veni sponsa Christi

Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina: Veni sponsa Christi

Jean Yves Daniel-Lesur: from Le Cantique des cantiques “Épithalame”

Anonymous: Agincourt Carol

Guillaume Dufay: Lamentatio sanctae matris ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae

Clément Janequin:  La Guerre

György Ligeti: Éjszaka (Night)

 

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