Founded in 1964, Cantata Singers is a Boston-based chorus and orchestra whose roots lie in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The ensemble’s main season and chamber concerts now explore a wide range of music that reaches from the 17th century to the present, often exploring connections to Bach’s continuing and profound influence on our music, our culture, and ourselves.
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, and 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.
Under the direction of David Hoose for the past 39 years, they not only did Bach, but also commissioned Pulitzer Prize-winning work and often brought connections between older and modern choral works. The Cantata Singers’ unforgettable performance of Schoenberg’s “Friede auf Erden” (“Peace on Earth”) at the beginning of the Gulf War was one of the most moving musical experiences viewers ever had. Per Wbur.
Hoose was scheduled to retire in 2020, but since there were no concerts last year, and the board, in its infinite wisdom, refused the request of the chorus members to honor Hoose by rescheduling that lost season this year. So, this year, each Cantata Singers concert will be conducted by one of the finalists for Hoose’s replacement. Hoose himself will continue as director of Collage New Music, which has not yet announced its upcoming season. Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez will conduct Bach in relation to several contemporary pieces on October 22. Anthony Trecek-King will lead a seasonal concert combining Bach and Schütz with 20th and 21st-century works, featuring Margaret Bonds’s setting of Langston Hughes, “The Ballad of the Brown King” on December 12. Both concerts will take place at First Church in Cambridge.
