Among this season's adventurous themes: unexpected juxtapositions of two master composers, the radiant choral legacy of Venice's San Marco, the power of ideas to inspire music, and the partnership of story, image, and song in a new silent film score to be given its world premiere at the American Film Institute Silver Spring Theatre and Cultural Center.
The season opens Saturday, October 15, with A MUSICAL B & B, exploring the vast choral and vocal writings of Bach and Brahms. Guest artists Barbara Hollinshead, mezzo-soprano, Rachel Barham, soprano, and James Rogers, baritone, will be soloists in Bach's Lutheran Mass in F Major. Stunning selections by Brahms include an unusual pairing of mezzo-soprano and viola and a set for unaccompanied choir, strophically simple but with gorgeous melodies and texts indeed set by a master.
Concert Notes
Purchase tickets to A MUSICAL B & B (Oct 15).
On Sunday, December 11, Cantate and guest instrumentalists explore several generations of San Marco's maestri di cappella, or music directors, who together created a unique repertoire of sacred works in the dazzling polychoral style. Our program includes seasonal works by the most famous of the maestri, (Monteverdi, Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli) but also shines light on others such as Giovanni Rovetta, the successor to Monteverdi, and Adrian Willaert, who brought Franco-Flemish polyphony south to Italy and helped invent the San Marco sound.
Concert Notes
Purchase tickets to HOLIDAY IN VENICE (Dec 11, 3 pm).
On Saturday, March 31, Cantate presents a stimulating evening of GREAT MINDS, exploring the work done by thinkers, poets, and painters through music. Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine by Eric Whitacre is on the program, along with And so ended Kant's travelling in this world by the British minimalist Gavin Bryars and works by Martin, Dallapiccola, Holst, and even the philosopher Nietzsche. Also: Cantate proudly unveils the winner of its biennial Young Composers’ Contest, a setting of a poem by painter Wassily Kandinsky for chorus.
Concert Notes
Purchase tickets to GREAT MINDS (Mar 31, 7:30 pm).
On Saturday, June 9, Cantate is thrilled to join with the American Film Institute Silver Spring Theatre and Cultural Center in presenting the world premiere of Andrew Earle Simpson's new score for the classic silent film THE WIND (1928), starring Lillian Gish and directed by Victor Seastrom, a master of the silent era originally from Sweden. Commissioned as part of Cantate’s Composer-in-Residence program, Simpson's work is scored for chorus and chamber ensemble to accompany the film's gripping, atmospheric story of a young Virginian who heads west to the harsh plains of Texas.
Concert Notes
Purchase tickets to THE WIND (Jun 9, 3 pm).