New York, NY, November 22, 2004 - As Chanticleer gears up for its annual holiday tour, the multiple Grammy® Award-winning vocal ensemble has many reasons to be thankful. For starters, its new recording, How Sweet the Sound: Spirituals and Traditional Gospel Music, has been a Billboard bestseller since its release on Warner Classics in September, appearing on both the crossover chart (where it recently achieved the number four position) as well as the gospel chart. The album, Chanticleer's 28th recording to date, is the group's second full-length gospel recording, featuring arrangements by Chanticleer's Music Director Joseph Jennings and additional vocals by guest artist Bishop Yvette Flunder.

The widely circulated Parade magazine selected the album as one of the fall's most captivating releases: "For more than 25 years, Chanticleer…has been combining black spirituals and ingenious classical arrangements, with glorious results. Their latest, How Sweet the Sound, can take the edge off the grimmest evening news - and it rocks!" A writer for Billboard called the pairing of Bishop Flunder with Chanticleer "inspired," noting, "[it] will certainly appeal to a very wide swath of listeners. … [Flunder's] no-holds-barred soulfulness is artfully framed by the plush sound of Chanticleer (whose precision is as tight as a drum)." The Seattle Times recently named the album one of the best CDs of the season.

Chanticleer's fans will no doubt rejoice at the news that one of the group's most popular Christmas albums, Our Heart's Joy, will be re-released this holiday season. Recorded in 1990 for the group's own imprint, Chanticleer Records (CR 8803-2004), Our Heart's Joy has been completely re-mastered. Along with substantially improved audio quality, the new version incorporates five tracks from another early CD, Psallite! A Renaissance Christmas.

Our Heart's Joy includes Christmas works ranging from Renaissance motets and traditional carols to African-American spirituals. Some of the music most beloved by Chanticleer's fans is featured on the CD, including Franz Biebl's "Ave Maria," now known as the ensemble's Christmas hallmark.

"Our Heart's Joy was one of the ensemble's first and most popular CDs," observes Chanticleer Music Director Joseph Jennings, who has been with the ensemble since 1983. "We're very pleased to be able to re-master the recording to take advantage of advances in audio technology so that the quality matches that of the rest of our discography."

A complete track list for Our Heart's Joy follows below.

Holiday Tour 2004

Chanticleer will perform A Chanticleer Christmas, its enormously popular holiday program, 22 times from November 28 through December 23. The program features an irresistible blend of traditional carols, sacred music and rousing spirituals. Performances this year include the group's annual holiday concerts in the Medieval Sculpture Hall of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (December 5), two performances in Chicago (December 7, 8), and a return engagement at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (December 21). A Chanticleer Christmas has become a holiday tradition in concerts across the country, on best-selling recordings - including a DVD filmed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art during Chanticleer's landmark 25th-anniversary season - and in annual public television broadcasts. A critic for the New Yorker observed, "No one does a better choral Christmas than the virtuoso male voices of Chanticleer."

Chanticleer's Christmas recordings have consistently been Billboard bestsellers. The New Yorker recently called the group's enormously popular Sing We Christmas, recorded for Teldec/Warner Classics International (Chanticleer's exclusive label), "one of those rare holiday albums good enough to be listened to all year round."

A complete list of Chanticleer's 2004 holiday concert dates follow below. For further information visit www.chanticleer.org. For further information visit www.chanticleer.org

OUR HEART'S JOY: A CHANTICLEER CHRISTMAS
Completely re-mastered and incorporating selected tracks from Psallite!
Available now on Chanticleer Records (Cat #CR 8803-2004)

Total Time: 66:49
Purchase online at www.chanticleer.org or order toll-free, 1-800-950-1177 (M-F, 9-5 Pacific Time)

CHANTICLEER HOLIDAY TOUR 2004

(Bay Area subscription season dates in bold)

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