For Immediate Release
CHANTICLEER COMMISSIONS NEW WORKS BY EMERGING ARTISTS FOR
COMPOSERS/OUR AGE
MARCH CONCERT PROGRAM FEATURES WORLD PREMIERES BY MASON BATES, SHAWN CROUCH AND TARIK O’REGAN
Tickets are on sale now, visit www.chanticleer.org or call 800-407-1800
SAN FRANCISCO, January 13,
2009—Chanticleer, the renowned “Orchestra of Voices” and the world’s
leading men’s choir, has commissioned Mason Bates, Shawn Crouch and Tarik O’Regan to compose new
works for the ensemble, now in its 31st year. The three composers are
themselves in their early thirties, and at Chanticleer’s invitation have
created a cappella pieces for the Composers/Our Age program premiering March
17, 2009, in Berkeley, Calif., followed by performances in Santa Clara, Calif.,
on March 18 and San Francisco, March 20 through 22.
Funding for the compositions has been provided by The Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Emerging Composers 2007 Initiative (Bates), The Dale Warland Commissioning Award (Crouch), and Chanticleer’s Joseph Jennings Fund for
Music (O’Regan).
Mason Bates, who has written a new work entitled Sirens for Composers/Our Age, composes in a wide variety of media,
with a portfolio of orchestral, chamber, theatrical, and electronic
compositions to his credit. Spanning the classical concert hall to the clubs
and lounges where he spins as “DJ Masonic,” his music has been hailed by the
San Francisco Chronicle as “lovely to hear and ingeniously constructed.”
Currently attending University of California, Berkeley, Bates cites the
university’s Center For New Music and Audio Technologies as an important
influence on his approach to electro-acoustic composition. He is a member of
the New York-based Young Concert Artists and attended the Columbia-Juilliard
program in New York City. Earning degrees in music composition and English
literature, he studied music with John Corigliano,
David Del Tredici and Samuel Adler and playwriting
under Arnold Weinstein and Kenneth Koch.
Shawn Crouch’s composition, The Garden of
Paradise, is based on the poems of poet Brian Turner, an Iraq war veteran,
whose moving accounts of the war are set along side poems by the Persian poet Rumi, as selected and translated by Dr. Majid Naini. Anthony Tomassini of the
New York Times has described Crouch’s work as music of “gnarling atonal
energy.” In 2006 his Road From
Hiroshima; A Requiem was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Composition.
Crouch has studied composition with Martin Bresnick,
Ezra Laderman and Malcolm Peyton and conducting with
Marguerite Brooks.
Crouch was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center
and the Norfolk Music Festival where he studied with Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Gandolfi and Augusta Read Thomas. He received his B.M. in composition from the New
England Conservatory with honors and distinction in performance, and his M.M.
in composition from the Yale School of Music. Crouch currently serves on the
faculty at Hunter College Campus School in New York City, as well as the Walden
School in Dublin, New Hampshire.
Tarik O’Regan’s work, No Matter, consists of excerpts from
Samuel Beckett's 1983 monograph, Worstward Ho.
London-born O’Regan is a two-time British
Composer Award winner. His 2008 recording, Threshold of Night, debuted at number ten in the American Billboard
charts and recently received two Grammy® nominations (Best Classical Album and
Best Choral Performance). Prior releases include ScatteredRhymes, and his 2006
debut disc, VOICES. O’Regan’s compositions have been performed by the BBC
Symphony Orchestra, London Sinfonietta and Los
Angeles Master Chorale. He is currently working on an operatic version of
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness in
development with American Opera Projects in New York and OperaGenesis in London. O’Regan divides his time between New York
and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he is Fellow Commoner in the Creative
Arts.
A multi-Grammy® Award-winning, 12-member men’s choral ensemble, with more than
30 recordings to date, Chanticleer has an impressive repertory and unique
arrangements that span the masterworks of the Renaissance to contemporary
commissioned works by some of the world’s leading composers.
Chanticleer annually presents more than 100 concerts in cities throughout the
United States and in the world’s leading musical capitals at the finest venues,
festivals and performing arts centers. The New Yorker proclaimed Chanticleer as
“the world’s reigning male chorus” and one of Vienna’s leading papers, Die Presse wrote “Chanticleer is
peerless in many ways - with superb performing style, perfect intonation, and
infectious joy in making music.” The San Jose Mercury News recently
hailed the ensemble as “arguably the best in the world,” and that “these
singers deserve the stature of athletes and rock stars.”
Chanticleer was recently named “2008 Ensemble of the Year” by the international
publication Musical America. Other awards in 2008 include ASCAP’s recognition
of Artistic Advisor Joseph Jennings as a 2008 Concert Music Honoree, the
induction of Chanticleer into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame, and
the inaugural Dale Warland Commissioning Award at the
National Performing Arts Conference in Denver. In 2008 Chanticleer released the
DVD The Singing Life about its educational program, and the CD/DVD Mission
Road, of music from California’s mission period. The 2009 tour includes
Chanticleer’s debut performances in the People’s Republic of China in May.
Tickets for Composers/Our Age are $25 to $44. To purchase tickets, call
800-407-1400 or visit www.chanticleer.org or www.cityboxoffice.com.
Calendar
First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way, Berkeley
Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 8 p.m.
Mission Santa Clara, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara
Wednesday, March 18 at 8 p.m.
San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco
Friday, March 20 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, March 21 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, March 22 at 5 p.m.
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