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A Celebration of Music

Join us May 2 or 3 to enjoy a celebratory concert we've titled "O Music, Sweet Music: Celebrating Music in Song." Cantemus will be joined by oboeist Margaret Herlehy, who played with us four years ago. We'll be encoring the four haunting and lyrical "Pastorales" by American composer Cecil Effinger (1914-1990) that we performed together then, and Margaret will join us for another four-song cycle, "There is Sweet Music There," by contemporary composer Stephen Chatman, with texts by Blake, Tennyson, and Shelley.

A highlight of the May concerts will be the world premiere of "Veni Sancte Spiritus" (Come, Holy Spirit), composed by Javier F. Marquez for Cantemus' second Choral Composition Competition, held last year as part of our 25th Anniversary celebration. Javier, a native of the Dominican Republic, was a student at Salem State when he composed this piece, which won the competition. Cantemus would like to thank Choral Arts New England for funding the competition prize.

Benjamin Britten's "Hymn to St. Cecilia" (the patron saint of music), with words by W.H. Auden, is a challenging and varied exploration in verse of the "birth" of music featuring solos by four Cantemus singers.

Rounding out our "sweet music" concert will be two Renaissance works, Francis Pilkington's "Music, Dear Solace" and Cipriano de Rore's "Musica dulci sono," American 18th-century composer William Billings' humorous takes on "Modern Music," and a number of canons. All recognize the many joys and comforts that music brings to all our lives... please join us to share this "sweet" experience in May!

Oboist Margaret Herlehy

Margaret Herlehy, oboe, received her training at the University of Michigan and Sarah Lawrence College where she remained as Artist in Residence for a five-year tenure. Her principal teachers include Lois Wann and Arno Mariotti.

As a chamber musician, she performs with Sospiri ensemble and recently premiered works for oboe, bassoon and piano at the 2003 International Double Reed Conference in Greensboro, NC. She also performs with Infinities chamber ensemble as a member of Massachusetts’ Young Audiences presenting Young People’s Concerts throughout New England. She has performed on WGBH Morning Pro Musica, recorded commercial soundtracks for radio, television and major motion picture soundtracks and can be heard on numerous New Age recordings.

Ms. Herlehy currently performs as principal oboist of the Hanover Chamber Orchestra and the Granite State Symphony. In addition, she has performed with the Portland Symphony Orchestra, and as soloist with the New England String Ensemble and the Berkshire Opera, among other orchestras throughout the Northeast.

In addition to performing, Ms. Herlehy maintains an active teaching schedule. She is lecturer of oboe at the University of New Hampshire and founder and Artistic Director of Music da Camera Chamber Music Workshops since 1992. An avid speed skater, she lives in Strafford, NH.

Cantemus Hosts High School Choral Festival

This year’s “Best of the Best” concert takes place Thursday, April 16, at The Governor's Academy Performing Arts Center in Byfield, beginning at 7:30 pm. For each program, Cantemus invites high school choruses and their directors to join together for an evening of sharing their work. (Picture a high school sports demonstration, but the crowd is cheering not for the teams, but for the choruses!) It’s always a high-energy, enthusiastic evening of collaborative music making by our region’s young singers.

Confirmed participants are The Governor's Academy, Triton High School, The Pingree School and Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School, with another school to be announced. Each school and Cantemus will sing, then all voices will join for a grand finale.

Susan Nash, who has been singing with Cantemus for over 20 years, said: “At the Best of the Best concert, we want to show young singers that singing is an artistic activity they can pursue all the years they are in school – and many, many years after. Every year, the Cantemus singers are amazed at the quality of musicianship of these high school groups, and at the terrific job their conductors are doing to encourage them to pursue choral singing.”

Tickets at the door are $5 for adults; students 21 and under are admitted for free.

Cantemus thanks New England Biolabs for their grant to make it possible for schools to travel to the venue.

Cantemus Makes Rockport Debut

Cantemus draws its singers from all over the North Shore and beyond, and we want to draw our audiences from as wide an area. We also want the experience of performing in other venues. To that end, we are performing someplace new on May 2 — Rockport. It will be our first performance on Cape Ann in over 25 years, i.e., ever! The sanctuary and acoustics at First Congregational Church on School Street are excellent, and well suited to a chamber chorus. So, if you're one of our "southern" fans who has been attending our concerts in Hamilton, Wenham or Ipswich, please join us in Rockport on Saturday, May 2, at 7:30. We will perform our concert again the next day in Newburyport, at 4:00 pm, at St. Paul's Church on High Street.

Make a night of it by having dinner before or after at one of Rockport's many wonderful restaurants. Newburyport has great places to eat, too! See some dining suggestions.

Choral Composition Competition Winner Announced

To mark the occasion of our 25th season, Cantemus held its second Choral Composition Competition, open to all students enrolled in a New England college or university. We announced the winner at our May 17 gala concert: "Veni Sancte Spiritus," composed by Javier F. Marquez, who was a senior at Salem State. Cantemus will premiere the work at our May concerts.

This project was supported in part by an Alfred Nash Patterson Grant from Choral Arts New England.

And They Can Sing, Too!

While several Cantemus singers do make their living in positions related to music, others make their mark in other areas of the arts. Some recent notable examples:

Marcia B. Siegel (alto) writes on dance for the Boston Phoenix and the Hudson Review. She has published six books, most recently the critical study Howling Near Heaven - Twyla Tharp and the Re-invention of Modern Dance. A new collection of Siegel's reviews and essays, Mirrors and Scrims - The Life and Afterlife of Ballet, will be published in 2009 by Wesleyan University Press.

Pat Lowery Collins (alto), author and artist, welcomed the publication of a sequel to her seminal picture book, I Am An Artist, in spring of 2008. Titled I Am A Dancer, this picture book illustrated by Mark Graham, takes a look at the process of dance as found in the natural movements of children. A historical young adult novel, Hidden Voices, The Orphan Musicians of Venice, is forthcoming from Candlewick Press, a division of Random House, in spring of 2009. A second novel (her fifth), Feather and Shell, set in Essex, MA in 1849, is scheduled for release in 2010. In fine arts, she is still working on a series called Of Time and Tides. New work from it has recently been shown at The Northshore Arts Association. She is also a member of the core faculty of Lesley’s University’s low residency graduate program in creative writing.

Alto Dorothy Monnelly's book, The Great Marsh – Between Land and Sea, was published in 2007 by George Braziller Publishers, NY. Dorothy is well-known as an award-winning fine art photographer. In this collection of 57 large-format, black-and-white photographs, the salt marsh is rendered dramatically in her original gelatin silver prints. Her work is described in the forward by Jeanne Adams, director of the Ansel Adams Trust, as capturing the marsh’s “amazing sculptural quality.” Dorothy’s work is in the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC, and has been exhibited at The Edward Carter Gallery in NYC, The Ralls Collection in DC, Benham Gallery in Seattle, Camera Obscura in Denver and Panopticon in Boston, as well as in Maine, California and Hawaii.


Gary Freeman (tenor) is a regular contributor to Goldberg, a Spanish publication dedicated to world-wide early music. Every other month he includes two articles on early music concerts and events in North America. Published in three languages and distributed worldwide, Goldberg is a semi-scholarly journal that competes with the publication Early Music America in the US. For his Goldberg submissions, Gary interviews some of the most remarkable singers and instrumentalists of our time. In addition, Gary reviews books for The Living Church, published in Milwaukee, WI, and Episcopal Life, published in New York. The Living Church has pegged Gary as an expert on Medieval monks and monastery architecture, Medieval and contemporary, and Episcopal Life asks Gary to review more controversial subjects, such as war and the Christian conscience. 

Buy Early for Ticket Deals

Everyone loves a bargain, so be sure to take advantage of discounted advance ticket pricing for our May concerts. To receive advance tickets by mail, simply mail your ticket request and check (made out to “Cantemus”) to Cantemus Tickets, c/o 18 Turkey Shore Rd., Ipswich, MA 01938. Orders must be received at least one week prior to the concert date; late-request tickets will be held at the door. Tickets by mail are sold at the advanced-price rate of $18 (adults) and $15 (seniors). And don’t forget that students aged 21 and under are always admitted free to our concerts!

Please also visit our ticket outlets for discounted tickets: The Book Shop in Beverly Farms, Nazir’s Fine Jewelry in Wenham, River Gallery in Ipswich, and The Newburyport Printmaker.

There are so many ways to save while hearing Cantemus’ “Small Chorus, Grand Sound!” We can accept one discount per ticket purchase.

Visit our Tickets page for more information.

Download Concert Posters

Download concert posters to enjoy at home or send to friends. Posters are provided in PDF format. You may need to install Adobe Reader® to view them.

Order a CD

Ranging from traditional carols to international music of the season to a complete performance of Benjamin Britten’s masterful "Ceremony of Carols" for treble voices and harp, our debut CD presents the listener with a sampling of our most spirited seasonal pieces.

"Joy Shall Be Yours" is available for purchase at all of our concerts as well as at the River Gallery in Ipswich.

To purchase "Joy Shall Be Yours" by mail, please send a check or money order for $8 per CD, or 2 for $15, plus $2.50 shipping and handling, payable to Cantemus, P.O. Box 784, Ipswich, MA 01938. There are just a few left, so order yours today.

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