For Immediate Release
Contact: Gloriæ Dei Cantores Publicity
Phone: 508-255-3999
Email: [email protected]
To hear Gloriæ Dei Cantores singing Super flumina Babylonis, click here.
To hear Gloriæ Dei Cantores singing Otche Nash, click here.
Braintree, MA -- Gloriæ Dei Cantores, the 40-voice choir from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, returns to Boston to begin their Fall 2009 tour with a concert at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, 1400 Washington Street, Boston, MA on Thursday, September 24, 8:00 pm. The choir joins the Archdiocese of Boston to celebrate Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley’s 25th Anniversary of Episcopal Ordination. The concert is free and open to the public. Donations to support the Choir will be accepted.
Gloriæ Dei Cantores will introduce cities across the United States to the work of 20th century Russian composer Georgy Sviridov. Sviridov himself encountered Gloriæ Dei Cantores on their second tour of Russia, and after hearing the choir sing the music of the Russian Orthodox Church, he personally entrusted his six-movement work, Ineffable Mystery, to the choir to be performed and recorded. Sadly, Sviridov died weeks before the choir returned to Russia for the third time in 1998. Gloriæ Dei Cantores was privileged to visit and sing at Sviridov’s grave, and to fulfill his wishes by performing Ineffable Mystery in concert halls in Moscow, the cities of the Golden Ring, and Saint Petersburg.
The remainder of the concert program includes Gregorian chant; excerpts from the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil; American composer Howard Hanson’s Cherubic Hymn; the First Nocturne of the Tenebrae, Op. 72, by English composer Edmund Rubbra; and Frank Martin’s unparalleled Mass for Double Choir.
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The tour coincides with the release of Gloriæ Dei Cantores’ newest CD, Unto Ages of Ages: Sacred Choral Music of Sviridov, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, featuring the North American recorded premiere of Ineffable Mystery by Georgy Sviridov, and excerpts from two of the most important liturgies of the Russian Orthodox Church: The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom by Tchaikovsky, and the All-Night Vigil by Rachmaninoff. Unto Ages of Ages represents another culmination point in Gloriæ Dei Cantores’ dedication to authentic spiritual interpretation and performance technique of Russian sacred choral music.
Gloriæ Dei Cantores’ history in Boston includes critically-acclaimed performances at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall; at Symphony Hall with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops; at the Boston Festival of Orthodox Music at St. Columbkille Church; the Church of the Advent; Trinity Church; Boston Gardens; and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. The choir regularly sings in worship services and in concert at the Church of the Transfiguration in Orleans, Massachusetts. Directed by Elizabeth C. Patterson, their recordings and performances of sacred choral music, from Gregorian chant to the 21st century, consistently garner high praise. Of their 2005 performance of Vaughan Williams’ opera “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe said: “The preparation by director and conductor Elizabeth Patterson and her assistants was meticulous; one seldom sees an operatic production as powerful in conception and polished in execution as this “Pilgrim’s Progress.” The overall effect, anchored by the superb chorus Gloriæ Dei Cantores and Patterson’s assured and probing musicianship, was spectacular.”
This is the first concert on Gloriæ Dei Cantores’ Fall 2009 Tour, which takes the choir across the country from Boston to Greenwich, Grand Rapids, Cleveland, Chicago, Little Rock, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Phoenix. For more information and interviews, please contact Belinda Schmitt at [email protected], or call 774-722-1458. Visit Gloriæ Dei Cantores on the web at www.gdcchoir.org.