12.2007

Tales From the Road is evolving!

Since our travels to Africa and extended tour with the Boston Pops started, we discovered the virtues of keeping a more regular blog presence, so starting this month, we'll link you directly to our latest entry, but invite you to enjoy learning about our experiences more often on our touring blogs at blogger.com! We will provide links to upcoming blogs on our website.

In between those African and Boston tours, we had the pleasure of meeting and singing for saxophone legend Branford Marsalis! He was speaking at Westminister Church's nationally broadcast Town Hall Forum, and took some time out of his schedule to listen to some of our rehearsal. We sang some songs for him and chatted for awhile. He was very supportive and enjoyed our music--who knows? Maybe we'll end up working together sometime...

Touring is always interesting, visiting many new places, meeting new friends--but also difficult at times. You miss your loved ones, you spend lots of hours perfecting a nap sitting up (or without strangling yourself with your iPod headphones). We've been fortunate this time around with so much airplane travel, so we're probably a little spoiled! It's so much faster than vans. We're also looking very forward to getting home to do our own Christmas show, All is Calm, based on the Christmas Day truce of WWI. This year is filled with so many fulfilling collaborations, Boston Pops, Theater Latté Da, Trio Mediaeval, St. Olaf Choir--but we'll have to tell you about all that stuff in another installment!

12.2007

Keep up with Cantus and the Boston Pops
Read our new blog for this 2007 holiday tour...

11.2007

Thirty-plus hours after leaving our hotel on Monday, we arrived back at the Minneapolis/Saint Paul International Airport. Our bags are now hopefully unpacked and disinfected, gifts distributed, and clothes freshly laundered in hot water. Africa was an amazing place, both exciting and stressful. Every experience was extreme. By the numbers, we performed at twenty-one events or gatherings, singing for over 20,000 people live, and we were fortunate enough to be covered by Cameroon's national television, so we reached countless more.

The first part of our travels included an incredible reception by a choir and drummers in bustling and dirty Douala, the missions and resorts of Kribi, as well as the the sprawling capital, Yaounde (where we sang a major collaborative concert one night, and performed for our ambassador to Cameroon at the U.S. Embassy, Janet E. Garvey the next). We headed next to Kumba Town on the worst road any of us had ever been on in our entire lives! We closed our trip with a giant celebration of the Presbyterian Church's 50 year anniversary in Buea and slept in the coastal town of Limbe. Whether heading to a market for carved masks and soccer jerseys, or hiking a jungle machete-hewn path to a century-old misson site, we experienced a real-life adventure. Our group managed intense heat, crater-sized potholes full of mud, scary bathrooms, and a student uprising, but made beautiful music with incredible and jubilant African choirs. We recorded all the performance nights, collecting the songs we heard at every turn. We also taught a couple of workshops.

We must send a special thank you to Westminster Presbyterian Church for inviting us on the trip, and putting so much trust into our men and music. We became very close to the Westminster community who travelled with us, people who gave us support, companionship, and good humor throughout the tour, and we know that this was a trip we will all remember for years and years.

Now we have but a week to prepare for the Boston Pops, and our own Christmas shows--hopefully the jet lag will subside quickly!

11.2007 Keep in touch with Cantus while they're in Cameroon
Cantus will be keeping a blog during their trip. Check it out!

10.2007

Since the 2007-08 group has yet to go on tour by press time, the members were asked about some of their own favorite music to kick off this season's Tales from the Road.  In future segments, we'll present answers to other grueling questions:

So what are some of your favorite non-classical artists?

Tom McNichols:  “Rockapella, Pink Floyd, Bobby McFerrin, Issac Freeman.”
Aaron Humble:  “Donna Summer.”
Shahzore Shah:  “Don’t listen enough to have favorites, but I enjoy bands such as the Squirrel Nut Zippers and Dee-Lite.”
Dashon Burton:  “I enjoy Joao Gilberto, Aphex Twin, Jimi Hendrix, and various barbershop quartets.”
Adam Reinwald:  “Beck, Sting, Andrew Bird, Jeff Buckley, Jamie Cullum, Stevie Wonder, The Arcade Fire, Feist, Sam Bean, Sufjan Stevens, Pink Martini, Devotchka, Jolee Holland.”

What about classical artists, then?

Tim Takach:  “Rautavaara, Patrick Doyle, Danny Elfman.”
Gary Ruschman: “Video game soundtrack pioneer Nobuo Uematsu, Mezzo sopranos Jennifer Lane, Dame Ann Murray, and Cecilia Bartoli; soprano Dorothea Röschmann (not just because of her last name!)”
Michael Jones: “Franco Corelli, 'The Pav', Barbara Fritolli, Birgit Nillson.”
Pete Zvanovec: “Cantus, Kings Singers.”

What album(s) would people be surprised that you own?

Dashon Burton:  “Gloria Estefan-Cherchez la femme.”
Pete Zvanovec:  “ Kid Rock, O-Town, Kenny Rogers.”
Shahzore Shah:  “Maybe U2 POP. Less of a surprise to those people would be learning that was the only rock concert I’ve ever attended.”
Tim Takach:  “Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure Motion Picture Soundtrack”
Tom McNichols:  “Most of them. Particularly, Rent Original Cast Recording and Snoop Dog”

Describe your favorite gig, whether with Cantus or not:

Dashon Burton:  “Singing on the stage of Severance Hall in Cleveland under Pierre Boulez on an all Stravinsky concert is among my favorite musical experiences.”
Gary Ruschman:  “When I had my solo debut with American Bach Soloists on a concert of Monteverdi, Lotti, and Gabrieli a few years ago.  I had been singing with the group in the chorus for about five seasons, and it was a great feeling to finally step up to the plate as a soloist for both this repertoire and group that I have so much love for.”
Aaron Humble:  “One of my favorite gigs with Cantus was the collaboration with Trio Medieval.  We had a great time and the result was exhilarating!”
Michael Jones:  “I sang a solo at Carnagie Hall when I was only 15 years old.”
Adam Reinwald:  “Performing in front of family and friends is always exciting, but my favorite performances were with the St. Olaf Choir and Cantus at the ACDA National Convention in Chicago in '99.”

09.2007

In July, Cantus headed over to Green Lake WI, for a weekend of singing and teaching at the Green Lake Festival Choral Institute. After a lecture/demonstration about what we do as a chamber ensemble, a few of the guys spent the afternoon giving private coaching to festival participants.

The following night's concert was an exciting variety of works, with the forces alternating at times on different settings of the same text or different pieces by the same composer. Joined by young but full-voiced soprano Amanda Majeski, the festival chorus, and singer-conductor Calland Metts, Cantus helped to bring the walls down in a rousing performance of Moses Hogan's Battle of Jericho. During the trip, the guys were invited to Institute sponsors Tom and Lisa Marquardt's fantastic Arts and Crafts style home, and had one of the most delicious and memorable dinners in Cantus history! The boys sang a short set for the family as thanks.

At the end of the month, the group traveled across the northern border to perform its Ontario Canada debut at the Elora Festival, in the Gambrel Barn: a venue that is actually used as a salt storage facility for area highways in the winter! The day had been beautiful, and no rain was in the forecast. However, just minutes before downbeat, the pitter patter of raindrops was heard on the venue's steel roof. In short order, the drizzle turned into a downpour, and the din made it impossible for the audience to hear. A decision was made to wait out the rain, but within a few minutes, the floor of the barn had flooded out. As the crew diligently tried to clear the water, somebody started calling area churches until another venue was secured in town. We reconvened forty-five minutes later at an intimate church in Elora, and did the show for a slightly soaked, but welcoming audience!

05.2007

Cantus headed out for the last lengthy tour of the season, off to the respective hometowns of our Executive Director Michael Hanawalt (Waverly, IA), and Artistic Director Erick Lichte (Appleton, WI), for teaching and concertizing. With global climate change always providing such interesting entertainment, we arrived in Waverly only to be hit overnight with not an April shower, but a snowstorm (!), which cancelled our educational outreach activity for the day--we drove through the tundra up to Appleton, where we hoped to teach and perform the following day (we'd already been snowed out of a show there earlier this season, so our hopes were a bit low at that point!). This time, however, Mother Nature smiled on us, and Erick and the guys had a successful day of teaching, along with a fine show collaborating with Appleton area young singers.

Back to Waverly the next day for more teaching (at this point, the snow was already melting away) and we found Waverly a bit chilly at first, but by the weekend, we had gorgeous blue sky and 70 degrees (fickle, fickle Mother Nature). Our esteemed leader's parents generously treated us to a fantastic traditional German meal at Martin's Brandenburg Restaurant, and Michael conducted the large festival choir comprised of students from Wartburg College, Michael's hometown high school, and Cantus.

We still have a few run-outs this spring and summer, but the bulk of the touring for the 06-07 season is over. Look for us on the road next season--either with the Boston Pops, or on our touring program in your town!

See you next season!

04.2007

To cap off our March media blitz and highly sucessful concert with poet Robert Bly, the nine singers of Cantus left for a two week tour--leading a festival in Goshen, IN (where Cantus will record an upcoming release this summer), then hitting much of colonial America, including Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and our nation's capitol: Washington DC!

Got a brilliant review from the Washington Post, and spent some fun time after the show with Frank Albinder (director of Male Choir Consortium partner Washington Camerata) and his singers. A former member of Chanticleer, Frank was an early supporter of Cantus who was instrumental in getting the group off the ground as a professional ensemble.

03.2007 - Down time...

In early February, Cantus traded Minnesota's sub-zero temperatures for sunny Arizona! Since this tour was unusual in having some free time (and warm free time at that), Tales this month talks about leisure-time activities for the Cantus gang!

Many of the guys are card and board game fans, so it's no surprise to see us getting together in a hotel lobby or breakfast area to play. Cantus favorites include Killer Bunnies, a raucous card game with hundreds of pop culture references, and Settlers of Catan, an award-winning colonial mixture of Risk meets Monopoly. Computer games are also a big hit with many of the guys, from contemporary franchises like Star Wars, Civilization, or Diablo, to classic gaming, with programs set up on a Powerbook to play Nintendo, Atari, and Eighties-era arcade games.

Tour down-time is a true commodity: Tom often brings along his camera, and is found hard at work on his blog. Mani arranges music, Michael works on our MySpace page , and Tim works on his new publishing company, Graphite Publishing.

As singers are athletes, the guys get exercise, too! Shahzore will take a walk whenever possible; Michael runs, Mani, Aaron, and Adam can often be found working out in a hotel exercise room, and you can track Gary or Dashon down at the racquetball court or hot-tub! It's great to be able to spend quality time with your colleagues in a non-work-related context--this in turn makes work much more pleasurable when we are on the clock.
"Look, Ma: no winter coats!" (Does this Cactus look like he's about to say something?)

02.2007 - 4,000 miles later...

Cantus embarked on a monumental two-week tour in January: 4000 miles, eight cities, seven concerts, and eight clinics! We started off with an all-day young men's music festival, featuring a number of choirs onstage with Cantus to perform Oolichan, a native chant from the Sliammon tribe of British Columbia, a raucous party song, and audience favorite to boot! Next was Roxbury Latin (America's oldest continuously-running private school), outside of Boston.

Next was a trip to Clinton New York's Hamilton college, where we were hit with a big 'Noreaster', and visited with Tom's parents, who drove in to see the show. We travelled onward to sing in the beautifully restored Smith Opera House in Geneva NY, complete with busts of Moliere and Mozart high on the walls. Again, a local high school choir joined us for a performance of Oolichan.

Smith Opera House - Geneva, NY

After stopping off on I-75 to teach a fun two-hour clinic with Bowling Green State University's men's chorus, we were happy to return to Miami University of Ohio. There, we were reunited with our friend Ethan Sperry, director of the Miami Glee Club (and co-founder of our Male Choir Commissioning Consortium), longtime Cantus patron Beth Swailles, and Gary's family, who live an hour south in Northern Kentucky. The Glee Club used this concert to kick off it's 100th anniversary season!

Cantus became the first vocal ensemble in years to kick off the 2007 Illinois Music Educators Association conference in Peoria, Il. This was one of the biggest and most supportive crowds we've performed for! The next day we gave a lecture-demonstration for a few hundred educators and students on how Cantus makes it's music.

We finished the tour with another clinic and performance with local performers in Sioux Falls, SD, where Cantus has recorded a number of its albums. The men of Cantus take a lot of pride in helping young men make music together, so we were pleased to get to sing along side hundreds of young men on this tour.

01.2007 - Christmas with Cantus

Cantus spent most of December touring the South (including some shows in balmy Florida!), then headed home to provide some holiday warmth to the Twin CIties.  Once again, we were joined by special guest host  Brian Newhouse from Minnesota Public Radio for an evening show and two "Coffee Concerts" full of Christmas music from the Americas.  Featuring music of both continents including John Jacob Niles' famous "I Wonder as I Wander", Eric Whitacre's gorgeous "Lux Arumque", Ariel Ramirez's haunting "La Huida", and Ed Wasche's fun barbershop arrangement of  "Winter Wonderland", the guys donned scarves and led sing-along carols with the audiences.  Throughout the month of December, Cantus fans around the world got a chance to hear our holiday program which was broadcast throughout America, and in twenty-seven foreign countries via American Public Media and the European Broadcast Union!

12.2006 - Nebraska, Trio Mediaeval

Cantus recently returned from performances in Lincoln, Nebraska (the Abendmusik series at the lovely First-Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC) and the prestigious Lied Center chamber series in Lawrence, Kansas (click here to read the review), to host a joint concert with the gorgeous voices of Norway's Trio Mediaeval for a evening of music at Minneapolis' St. Olaf Catholic Church. All three were delightful artists and possessed a genuine collaborative spirit. The two groups singing together, according to the Star-Tribune, "made for quite a sonic experience". Thanks, Linn, Torunn, and Anna!





Cantus with Trio Mediaeval.

11.2006 - OH, RI

Cantus headed eastward for three shows at the lovely Detroit Institute for the Arts. The first two concerts were held in a gorgeous room of Diego Rivera murals. Check out the photo in the link below. Next came concerts in Albany, OH and Sandusky, OH. It was our second visit to Sandusky, again hosted by Jackie Mayer. Jackie is Miss America
1963, and her sister is also a longtime Cantus supporter -Beth Swailes of Oxford, OH. (P.S. Jackie: thanks for the limousine ride to the show!)

The last stop: Cranston, RI. We managed to get a day off on the road, so a few of us ran down to Boston to check out the Colonial sights. The picture above is of Gary, Aaron and Michael hanging out with Samuel Adams.

Safely back in Rhode Island, the friendly proprietors of Culinary Affair opened their restaurant especially for Cantus, and treated us to by far the best meal of the season. Chicken, grilled vegetables, homemade pasta, and chocolate mousse - delightful! We recommend a visit if you're ever in Cranston - Culinary Affair, 650 Oaklawn Ave., Cranston, RI.

10.2006 - Clarksville, TN

Cantus "caught the last train" to spend three days concertizing and coaching choirs in Clarksville, Tennessee, home of Austin Peay State University.  We worked with a variety of groups, including a few high school men's choirs, university-level mixed chorus and chamber choir, and a collegiate men's ensemble, who joined us on Moses Hogan's arrangement of "Witness". The students were very open to experimentation, and were fun collaborators both in rehearsal and onstage.  The festival culminated in a concert featuring Cantus with an entire stage of young men singing--rarely are so many tuxedoes in one place at one time!

Dr. Karen Kenaston-French conducts the enormous festival chorus and
members of Cantus in a rehearsal of Franz Biebl's Ave Maria.

08.2006

The inaugural year of Camp Cantus, a week-long day camp for choral students was en exciting time of musical instruction, masterclasses, recitals, demonstrations, and...campfires!

The week culminated in an exciting, varied concert, featuring performances by Cantus, two Boomwhacker™ ensembles, elementary choir, junior high choir, high school men's and women's chamber ensembles, and mixed-voice high school chorus. All the participants combined forces with Cantus for renditions of Let Your Voice be Heard, an African High-Life song, and a heart-warming medley of folk songs.

Cantus and the staff of Mt Calvary Academy of Music enjoyed teaching and having fun with the kids who attended the week.

06.2006

Back in June, Cantus returned to lovely Sioux Falls, South Dakota for a week of recording many of the works we performed throughout the 2005-06 season.

Joining Cantus for a sixth recording session was audio legend John Atkinson, Editor-in-Chief of Stereophile magazine, who records, edits, and mixes the disc. John's recording set-ups for Cantus are often featured in Stereophile, and he has been known to use Cantus' recordings to demonstrate the capabilities of various amplifiers, speakers and headphones. Cantus was also happy to welcome back percussionist and frequent collaborator Dave Hagedorn for a special arrangement of a gregorian chant with vibes.



John fit all of our new music on a tiny Mac Mini! Dave's magic mallets!

05.2006

In May, Cantus joined the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and Finnish conductor John Störgards for a program featuring Mozart's "Little Freemason Cantata", Pärt's "Pilgrim Song", and selections from Holst's "Six Choruses". Always enjoying a collaboration with an orchestra, it is exciting for the men of Cantus to work with a conductor as well (since we only rarely use one). Störgards led the group in three performances of the program, as well as an open rehearsal, part of the SPCO's "Musical U" workshops--an in-depth look at the rehearsal process, and an informal discussion with class attendees.

Also performing some a cappella selections (including Poulenc's "Four Small Prayers of Saint Francis of Assisi"), Cantus' performance, according to the Pioneer Press, "...allowed them to steal the show...".
To read the review click here.

04.2006

Cantus zipped back and forth across the upper midwest on its April tour, hitting towns across Minnesota, Illinois, and a couple of towns in Iowa, including historic Keokuk, where our singers closed out the Keokuk Concert Association's 80th season in the lovely Grand Theatre. An Art Deco theatre with gilded ceiling, sea-foam interior, and nice acoustic, the Grand was built in 1924 on the foundation of Keokuk's Opera House, which had burned down the year before.

With Cantus joining an esteemed list of performers at the venue, including Al Jolson and John Philip Sousa, a beautiful marquee announced us as the evening's headliner--even in a small town, its exciting to see your name in lights!

03.2006
Prior to one of our Trinity-Pawling concerts in rural New York, composer Lee Hoiby visited with Cantus to work on his piece Private First Class Jesse Givens, which the group had just premiered in mid-March. For about an hour, Mr. Hoiby coached the rehearsal on the piece, discussing and working in new revisions suggested by both ensemble and composer--discovering together ways to clarify, phrase, and above all, communicate the heartfelt letter of a fallen soldier which serves as the text of this new composition. For the work session, Lee presented each of the members of Cantus with a new personalized, autographed copy of the score.

Working directly with a composer on his or her own works is one of the most rewarding things we get to do as musicians, since we really can get a sense of a composer's intentions, craft, and goals for a piece of music. We have so much gratitude for Lee's advice, caring, and collaborative spirit during his visit with us!
Photo credit: Adam Hubschman

02.2006
With years of performing in venues across the country, the guys have certainly logged well over 200,000 road miles, not to mention copious air milage, so the men of Cantus are hardened road warriors at this point. We travel far and wide through many a big city and small burg.

You never know what surprises you'll come across at a roadside stop, so we suppose this is the opportunity to show the world that underneath their rough, rugged exterior, The Cantus guys are actually suckers for cute, fluffy things...


... like baby geese!

01.2006
Since Minnesota happens to have a lot of that white, flaky stuff in January, we always appreciate
the opportunity to head south, so off to Florida we went for a nine-day tour!

This tour was marked by an unusual lack of coats and scarves, memorable concerts in Orlando and Lake Wales, and by a Cantus first: a five-show stand in Delrey Beach, at a beautiful, intimate venue.

And... something that Florida is famous for (drumroll, please):

ADVENTURE GOLF! (Don't think you'll be seeing any of us on the PGA tour anytime soon...)

We zipped home for a few days, then headed out to the University of Colorado, where we ran an exciting workshop with an advanced male chamber choir, and gave a concert in the lovely Macky Auditorium on the CU Artist Series. After the show, members of the Colorado Vocal Jazz Society fed and entertained us at a lovely reception, and presented us with a certificate of appreciation for our contributions to a cappella singing.