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July 20th, 2008
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Orchestra of voices

From San Francisco, songs that span the centuries
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By Fiona Gaze
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
February 6th, 2008 issue

Photo by LISA KOHLER
Chanticleer plans to showcase its entire wide-ranging repertoire in Prague.
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Chanticleer

When: Thursday, Feb. 7, at 7
Where: State Opera
Tickets: 100–500 Kč, available through Bohemia Ticket and at the venue

In The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer describes a clear-singing rooster named Chanticleer whose “voice was merrier than the merry organ that plays in church.” So it’s a fitting moniker for an award-winning, all-male American vocal ensemble acclaimed for its purity of singing and a cappella arrangements.
This year, Chanticleer is celebrating its 30th anniversary as an “orchestra of voices” with more than 100 concerts across the United States and Europe. The tour includes a stop in Prague this week with a program of surprises.
Founded by Louis Botto in 1978 and based in San Francisco, Chanticleer has changed the way the international musical community views vocal groups. Its 12 full-time singers recently garnered the coveted Ensemble of the Year title — the first time a vocal group has received such recognition. With roughly 30 albums under their cummerbunds, multiple Grammy awards to their name and numerous original pieces written especially for them by world-renowned composers, these men have something to sing about.    
Chanticleer’s repertoire is as diverse as its namesake’s plumage. “We sing just about everything,” Matt Oltman, assistant music director and in his ninth season as a tenor, writes via e-mail. “Sacred and secular music of the Renaissance is certainly a staple, but we sing lots of music from the Romantic period and the 20th and 21st centuries as well. We also sing music that is not necessarily ‘classical,’ such as folk music, vocal jazz and gospel.”
One of the group’s missions is to commission works by living composers. “We have had much success singing new music by composers such as Sir John Tavener, Chen Yi, Augusta Reed Thomas and Steven Stucky, just to name a few,” Oltman writes.
Although Chanticleer typically performs a cappella, it does use instrumentation when the right project arises. One of the ways the group will be expanding in 2008 is to perform a new work by Yi that is being penned expressly for Chanticleer and the Shanghai String Quartet. According to Oltman, “This may be one of the first times that a piece has been written to feature two small ensembles simultaneously.”
Oltman says that the group is equally comfortable singing in concert halls or churches, adding that, no matter where they perform, they pay particular attention to the acoustics. “We spend our warm-up rehearsals singing and listening in the performing space to try and best understand its unique characteristics,” he writes.     
Chanticleer will be spending more time in Central and Eastern Europe on this tour, and Oltman says the group is looking forward to performing in prestigious halls. “Singing at the Prague State Opera will certainly be one of the highlights,” he writes. “About 13 years ago, I actually saw a performance of The Magic Flute there. I never imagined that one day I would have the opportunity to sing on that stage myself.”
For its Prague performance, Chanticleer will sing a program titled “My Spirit Sang All Day.” Oltman describes it as a “wonderful concert for anyone who hasn’t heard us before, because it will showcase the wide variety of music we perform.” It includes sacred and secular Renaissance music, specially commissioned works by Stucky, a choral rendering of Mahler’s Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, Poulenc’s Quatre petites prieres de Saint Francois d’Assise, Hungarian folk-music settings by Ligeti as well as popular American folk, jazz and gospel.  
Over the past 30 years, Chanticleer has performed more than 5,000 pieces of music, and this anniversary year will bring some new ones. “We hope to continue to add to the choral repertoire by commissioning music from living composers,” Oldtman writes. But “one thing we hope will never change is our commitment to music and to music-making.
“Finally, we hope to bring peace to peoples of the world who are often surrounded by stress and noise.”

Fiona Gaze can be reached at fgaze@praguepost.com


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