The Cantata Singers and Ensemble is a professional volunteer choir

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

 and professional orchestral ensemble located in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

. Founded in 1964 to perform and preserve the cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

 (a body of works largely unknown in Boston at that time), the group has since expanded its scope to include repertoire from the 17th century to the present day. Their performances have included semi-staged operas and a series of seasons centered on a single composer - Kurt Weill

Kurt Weill

Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

, Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...

, Heinrich Schütz

Heinrich Schütz

Heinrich Schütz was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Claudio Monteverdi...

, and Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...

.

Winner of the ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, the organization is dedicated to challenging programming and the commissioning of new works, including John Harbison

John Harbison

John Harris Harbison is an American composer, best known for his operas and large choral works.-Life:...

’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Flight Into Egypt. The group has also recorded music of Schütz, J.S. Bach, Stravinsky, and many contemporary composers. Under the musical direction of David Hoose, the group presents a four-program subscription series, a chamber series under the direction of Allison Voth, pre-concert lectures and post-concert receptions at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall

Jordan Hall

Jordan Hall is a 1,019-seat concert hall in Boston, Massachusetts, the principal performance space of the New England Conservatory. It is one block from Boston's Symphony Hall, and together they are considered two of America's most acoustically perfect performance spaces...

 and locations across Boston and Cambridge. In addition to concerts and concert programming, Cantata Singers sponsors an "in-school" educational program called Classroom Cantatas, which enables students in Boston public schools to compose, rehearse and perform their own cantatas.

Music Directors

Leo Collins	1964-1967
Richard Kapp Richard Kapp Richard Kapp was an American conductor.Richard Kapp was born in Chicago, Illinois. He was a child piano prodigy. However, he studied German political history at Johns Hopkins University. He received his BA in 1957...	1968-1969
John Harbison John Harbison John Harris Harbison is an American composer, best known for his operas and large choral works.-Life:...	1969-1973
Philip Kelsey	1973-1975
John Ferris	1976-1980
John Harbison	1980-1982
David Hoose	1982-present

List of Commissioned Works

Year	Composer	Title	Notes
2010	Yehudi Wyner Yehudi Wyner Yehudi Wyner is an American composer, pianist, conductor, and music educator.Wyner, who grew up in New York City, was raised in a musical family. His father, Lazar Weiner, was an eminent composer of Yiddish art songs. Wyner attended Juilliard, Yale, and Harvard...	Give Thanks For All Things
2009	Andy Vores Andy Vores Andy Vores is a Welsh classical music and opera composer. He has lived in the United States since 1986 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.-Education:Vores studied composition at Lancaster University in Lancaster, England...	Natural Selection
2008	Lior Navok Lior Navok Lior Navok is an Israeli classical composer and conductor. He was born in Tel Aviv. His music has been performed in the United States, Europe, Israel, and Mexico by orchestras and ensembles including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the Tanglewood Festival...	Slavery Documents 3: And The Trains Kept Coming...
2007	Stephen Hartke Stephen Hartke Stephen Paul Hartke is an American composer. He grew up in Manhattan, where his first piano teacher was Mary Miley, and has lived in California since the 1980s...	Precepts	co-commissioned with Winsor Music
2006	John Harbison	But Mary Stood: Sacred Symphonies for Chorus and Instruments
2003	James Primosch	Matins	co-commissioned with Winsor Music
2002	T. J. Anderson T. J. Anderson Thomas Jefferson "T.J." Anderson is an African American composer, conductor, orchestrator and educator. He is well-known for his orchestration of the Scott Joplin opera, Treemonisha....	Slavery Documents 2
2000	Andy Vores	World Wheel
1994	Andrew Imbrie Andrew Imbrie Andrew Welsh Imbrie was an American composer of contemporary classical music.-Career:Imbrie was born in New York on April 6, 1921, and began his musical training as a pianist when he was 4. In 1937, he went to Paris to study briefly with Nadia Boulanger...	Adam
1990	Donald Sur Donald Sur Donald Young Sur was a Korean-American composer and musicologist. Although he is best known for his large-scale oratorio, Slavery Documents, most of his works were composed for small chamber ensembles. Sur was born in Honolulu and moved with his family to Los Angeles after World War II...	Slavery Documents
1988	Peter Child Peter Child Peter Burlingham Child is an American composer, teacher, and musical analyst. He is Professor of Music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a composer in residence with the New England Philharmonic....	Estrella
1986	John Harbison	The Flight Into Egypt	winner, 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Music

External links

• Official website of Cantata Singers and Ensemble