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Press Release

Cantemus Invites Audiences “To Sit and Dream,” Announces New Ticket Policy

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(March 22, 2016) —“Musings, reveries, daydreams, imaginings and re-imaginings” is how Cantemus Artistic Director Jane Ring Frank describes the program she has created for the chamber chorus’s spring concerts on April 30 and May 1. “This collection of music and texts slyly looks to the past for inspiration, while boldly moving into the future. It ranges from re-interpretations of two of Bach’s most famous chorales to heartfelt love songs to four rousing American spirituals,” she said. 

The program’s title, “To Sit and Dream,” is taken from a poem by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes. Composer Rosephanye Powell relies on jazz harmonies and blues influences to relay Hughes’ re-imagining of a “problem world” made new. This expressive piece is a bridge to arranger and pianist Tim Harbold’s “Marchin’ to Zion,” an old-fashioned gospel hymn, and the spirituals “Somebody’s Knockin’ at Your Door,” “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me,” and “I’ Been in the Storm.”

Contemporary composer Libby Larsen’s “Love Songs” are a choral cycle composed on texts by 20th-century American women poets. Frank says, “One is a wild, driving dance of spring, youth and freedom; one, a beautiful but mournful rendering of love lost but never forgotten; and one, based on a poem by Willa Cather, a deeply moving contemplation of love, rich and sustained, with warm and sonorous chords.”

“Cantate Domino canticum novum” by contemporary Estonian composer Arvo Pärt plus modern re-imaginings of two well-known Bach chorale melodies, by Helmut Bornefeld and Ed London, round out Cantemus’s spring program.

The concerts take place Saturday, April 30, at 7:30 PM at Christ Church of Hamilton-Wenham, 149 Asbury Street; and Sunday, May 1 at 4 PM at Central Congregational Church, 14 Titcomb Street, Newburyport. 

New Ticket Policy + Free Tickets

Audience members should note that Cantemus has a new ticket policy this season: Due to increasing audience sizes, the chorus will now sell tickets for EITHER Saturday OR Sunday; in the past, a ticket was good on either day. Tickets are available at retail outlets around the North shore, online, and at the door.

Thanks to the generosity of the West Newbury Local Cultural Council, some FREE tickets are available at the G.A.R. Memorial Library in West Newbury. For more concert and ticket details, call toll-free 1-888-CHORUS 1, or visit www.cantemus.org.

Cantemus gratefully acknowledges funding support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the West Newbury Local Cultural Council. Cantemus is a member of Chorus America, and of the Greater Boston Choral Consortium, a cooperative association of diverse choral groups in Boston and the surrounding area.  

Cantemus’ 45 members come from 25 communities on the North Shore, Boston, Cambridge and New Hampshire:

Amesbury: Ron Pressler. Cambridge: Artistic Director Jane Ring Frank. Danvers: Kelsey Atwater. Manchester-by-the-Sea: Isabella Bates. Beverly: Dick Church, Scott Hufford, Paul Kelly, Ali Lipman, Pamela Morris, Richard Salandrea, Jeremy Satchell, Rachel Small. Bradford: Mern Ebinger. Byfield: Doug Guy. Essex: Betsy Vicksell. Georgetown: Patty Clark. Gloucester: Ed Mowrey. Hamilton: Donna Gale, Marcy Homer, Peggy Russell. Ipswich: Gary Freeman, Bill Holloway, Anne Maguire, Hugh McCall, Stephen Miles, Dorothy Monnelly, Chris Reif, Sr. Pat Rolinger, Debby Twining. Lynnfield: Priscilla March. Marblehead: Debra Basile, Tanya Tupper. Melrose: Accompanist Jeffrey Mead. Newbury: Nancy Weinberg. Newburyport: Richard Blumenscheid, Claire Cayot, Gary Lubarsky. Peabody: Marjorie Short. Prides Crossing: Stephen Pletcher. Roslindale: Deborah Lemont. Salem: Aria Nevin. Shirley: Cheryl Hayden. Wenham: Elizabeth Lebel. West Newbury: Jamie Cabot, Michael Fosburg, Susan Nash. Durham, NH: Sydney van Asselt.

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For more information contact:
Susan Nash, Publicity
978-510-1033 

CANTEMUS
P.O. Box 784
Ipswich, MA 01938
 
Our name is pronounced:
“Can-TAME-us”
(Latin for “Let us sing”)
 
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