Season Archives and Notes

The music is straight from the heart with vivid lyrics, lively melodies, and tantalizing rhythms, featuring everal songs composed and arranged by Gwyneth Walker, with works by Donald Patriquin, Gabriel Faure, and Herbert Howells.

Saturday, April 28, 2012
Christ United Methodist Church, Piscataway, NJ
About the concert

Artistic Director Rebecca Scott conducted Cantabile in an entertaining exploration of the connections between modern choral music and Christian and Jewish music traditions. We began with old chants and melodies which turned into prayers for peace and contentment at the holiday time, and then to requests for blessings at the New Year. We ended with new songs inspired by the old traditional texts, set in respectful classic form by Mozart and in the jubilant, free expression of contemporary sound by John Rutter.

Saturday, December 3, 2011
Christ United Methodist Church, Piscataway, NJ
About the concert

The Heart Tree by Sally Duke who is our soprano section leader and one of our soprano soloists. Painting is another creative outlet for her and brings her much joy. She has recently started painting as a pass time and she offered to do our cover for this program since our professional artist, Jack Sarhage has been away. We are very grateful to her. Sally has caught the essence of the Romantic spirit playing on our childhood memories of the first love, which could not be said aloud, but only be carved in The Heart Tree!

Saturday, April 30, 2011
Christ United Methodist Church, Piscataway, NJ
About the concert

Artist Jack Sarhage has brought together the different elements of today's music. He depicts a
Christmas Eve in a broken and chaotic world, struggling to awaken to the possibility of the birth of
love and light while trying to hold on to faith in goodness and peace. The ten Virgins from the parable of Jesus. The five wise virgins are ready with their lamps lighted but the five foolish virgins, who
forgot to bring oil for their lamps, are locked out and remain in the dark. The sheep with the shepherd
are facing out towards the viewer, perhaps inviting us to come into the story or asking, are you ready?
Jack Sarhage has been creating artwork for Cantabile Chamber Chorale since its inception. We are very grateful to him for sharing his artisan’s insight and skill with us.

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 4, 2010
Christ United Methodist Church, Piscataway, NJ
About the concert

Our spring concert provides a rare chance for audiences to hear THE CUBAN MASS by Enrique Ubieta, the only internationally known Cuban liturgical work of its kind.  The concert will also feature Ruth Scott Clark’s Spring Rhapsody(1933); Emma Lou Diemer’s In One of the Stars (2006), which was commissioned and premiered by Cantabile to honor the life and in memory of Cantabile member Leila Eutermarks; and Robert L. Pearsall’s Lay a Garland (1840) an eight part a cappella madrigal. Other highlights include Irish folk tunes, jigs, and reels and a few English madrigals performed by small group ensembles.

7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 24, 2010
Christ United Methodist Church, Piscataway, NJ
About the concert

Come and share our lively and inspiring music from around the world as we sing in diverse languages with distinct harmonies and rhythms. If You Can Walk You Can Dance, (If You Can Talk You Can Sing) is a contagiously joyful song by Elizabeth Alexander based on an old Zimbabwean proverb. Totus Tuus by Henrk Górecki is a mystical contemporary setting of an a cappella motet venerating Mary, and in a lighter vein, you will be bemused by the world premiere of What You Will Learn About the Brobinyak, the third piece composed by Eric Sessler (text by John Ciardi) for Cantabile.

3:00 p.m. Sunday, December 6, 2009
Christ United Methodist Church, Piscataway, NJ
About the concert

Cantabile stirs your emotions with music inspired by the beauty of the earth and reverence for its creator. Hear excerpts of The Creation by F.J. Haydn, a masterful and dramatic setting about the creation of the world. You'll be moved by Schaffe in mir Gott by Johannes Brahms, an acappella setting of a text drawn from Psalm 51, and you're sure to enjoy the world premiere of Dodi li va'ani lo, the third piece written for Cantabile by composer Gerald Cohen.

7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 28, 2009
Christ United Methodist Church, Piscataway, NJ
About the concert

Our concert begins with an exploration of classical music styles and poetry forms dealing with themes of war and peace. Intensely poignant medleys of songs.

Our concert begins with an exploration of classical music styles and poetry forms dealing with themes of war and peace. Intensely poignant medleys of songs about wars long past provide vivid reminders that music connects us with the past while retaining its relevance in today’s world. A moving Shaker hymn provides the hope that “not one of them is forgotten before God”. It’s time for a Spring Awakening and so our songs turn to thoughts of love. Songs and sonnets, musical settings old Gaelic poems, and a rousing rhythmic African folksong provide a variety of moods for awakening to the promises of spring and love.

7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 26, 2007
Christ United Methodist Church, Piscataway, NJ
About the concert

We dedicate this program to Leila Eutermarks, remembering her gifts to us: kindness, courage, music, laughter. Cantabile commissioned Emma Lou Diemer to compose In One of the Stars to celebrate the life and in memory of Leila Eutermarks. The piece is a setting of the closing passages of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Our program title Celestial Spring comes from the featured work by Bruce Lazarus commissioned for Cantabile by artistic director Rebecca Scott.

7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 29, 2006
Christ United Methodist Church, Piscataway, NJ
7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 13, 2006
Bridgewater United Methodist Church, Bridgewater, NJ
About the concert

As we sing tonight, the low winter sun sets early. To the north, beneath the handle of the Little Dipper and riding the back of Taurus, shine the Pleiades, dozens of tiny gems surrounding the Seven Sisters. This brilliant cluster, pictured on our cover courtesy of a telescopic photograph, can still be viewed by eye wherever the screen of electric light has not smeared night's vivid darkness. In this season of natural darkness, human imagination and faith create festivals of light, such as Hanukkah -- a feast of miraculously burning oil lamps -- and Christmas, which anticipates both the return of the sun and the birth of a son. Like stargazing, so also poetry and music still conjure this sense of anticipation and hope. Tonight, Cantabile presents music and texts to evoke winter's dark and celebrate festivals of light.

7:30 p.m. Sunday, December 3, 2003
Christ United Methodist Church, Piscataway, NJ
About the concert

Tonight’s texts, like dreams, are woven of memory, vision, and imagination. Such dreams have long inspired great music. The flow of inspiration continues into our time, indeed into this season. Our audiences may recognize several prominent contemporary American composers. We performed Lauridsen’s “O Magnum” and Susa’s Six Joyce Songs last year, and Susa’s Carols and Lullabies in an earlier winter program. Cantabil eis especially pleased to be performing Eric Ewazen’s “The Bells” once more. The work was premiered in 1982 by Rebecca Scott and the Juilliard Pre-College Chorale, and was presented in New York by Cantabile in 1989. We have the privilege to present world concert premieres of two new madrigals, or part-songs, by California composer David Avshalomov. They are selections from a growing cycle comprising over 40 settings of Blake’s visionary Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.

7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 15, 2003
Christ United Methodist Church, Piscataway, NJ
About the concert