Cantate’s 2024-2025 40th Anniversary Concert Season
Cantate proudly presents our 2024-2025 season, celebrating 40 years of building community through choral music. This exceptional season builds upon Cantate’s tradition of innovative programming, featuring large-scale works and intimate evenings, choral chestnuts alongside new compositions, and exciting collaborations that explore and expand the choral canon.
A 40th Anniversary subscription gives you access to all six season concerts of stirring choral music sung by both the Concert Choir and the Chamber Singers. Join us for Verdi’s immortal Requiem with National Philharmonic, and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Carlos Simon’s Brea(d)th with Capital City Symphony. Enjoy an evening inspired by Shakespeare with The Firebird Project Theatre Company, and an oratorio showcase featuring our Lift Every Voice fellows. Revel in works by Benjamin Britten, Ola Gjeilo, Morten Lauridsen, Nathaniel Dett, Caroline Shaw, John Rutter, Jake Runestad, Jennifer Higdon, and more. Treat yourself to experiences ranging from a serene seasonal celebration with harp, to an exploration of the sacred with chamber ensemble, to full-scale orchestral productions. Subscribe today to experience all six concerts for the price of five!
Premium Subscription $259
General Admission Subscription $199
Young Patron (18-35) Subscription $139
Children 17 and under, always free.
Much Ado
Sunday, October 27, 2024 • 5:00 p.m.
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Rockville
100 Welsh Park Dr, Rockville, MD 20850
Cantate Chamber Singers partners with The Firebird Project Theatre Company for an immersive exploration of Shakespeare’s works through word and song. This unforgettable evening weaves together choral settings by Ralph Vaughan Williams, John Rutter, Emma Lou Diemer, and more with dynamic dramatic interpretations of scenes from the canon staged by playwright/director Zoe Senese-Grossberg. Join the performers after the concert for a reception celebrating the opening of our 40th anniversary season!
Verdi’s Requiem
Saturday, November 23, 2024 • 7:30 p.m.
Music Center at Strathmore
5301 Tuckerman Ln, North Bethesda, MD 20852
Cantate’s Artistic Director Victoria Gau takes the conductor’s podium at Strathmore Concert Hall to lead Cantate and National Philharmonic Orchestra in a full-scale performance of Verdi’s timeless Missa da Requiem. A quartet of world-class soloists brings power, emotion, and intensity to the performance: soprano Amber Monroe, mezzo-soprano Magdalena Wór, tenor Rafael Moras, and bass Zaikuan Song. Whether you’re experiencing Verdi’s Requiem for the first time or revisiting a beloved classic, you’ll be enthralled by a work that is as much a masterpiece today as it was at its premiere 150 years ago.
*Please note that tickets to Verdi’s Requiem are included in a Cantate season subscription, but individual tickets must be purchased through the National Philharmonic website. Tickets issued as part of a Cantate subscription will be eligible for exchange or upgrade by contacting the Cantate Box Office at (301)986-1799.
A Winter’s Night
Sunday, December 8, 2024 • 5:00 p.m.
Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church
6601 Bradley Blvd, Bethesda, MD 20817
Cantate Chamber Singers returns to a long-time favorite, Britten’s Ceremony of Carols for chorus and harp, alongside John Muehleisen’s beautiful cycle, This Night, for the same pairing. The program is completed with seasonal miniatures by Jennifer Higdon, Morten Lauridsen, Nathaniel Dett, and more, to set the stage for a contemplative and joyous holiday season.
Journey
Sunday, March 9, 2025 • 5:00 p.m.
Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church
6601 Bradley Blvd, Bethesda, MD 20817
The first half of this program showcases our talented Lift Every Voice scholars as, with a chamber orchestra, they perform highlights of oratorio repertoire prepared and polished during their residency with Cantate. In the second half of the program, Cantate Concert Choir shares Ola Gjeilo’s Dreamweaver and Jake Runestad’s The Secret of the Sea, which take us on beautiful, fantastical, and profound journeys of exploration.
Sacred Places
Saturday, April 5, 2025 • 5:00 p.m.
Christ Episcopal Church
4001 Franklin St, Kensington, MD 20895
Cantate Chamber Singers, joined by string quartet and piano, explore themes of compassion and hope in the face of injustice. Caroline Shaw’s To the Hands addresses immigrant crises. Based on a Jewish service, Alex Berko’s Sacred Place “is an ecological service that connects the old with the new, the sacred with the secular, and the individual with their community,” according to the composer. The program is completed by two stunning works from Ola Gjeilo.
Heal
Saturday, May 17, 2025 • 5:00 p.m.
Church of the Epiphany
1317 G St NW, Washington, DC 20005
Capital City Symphony and Cantate Concert Choir unite to share a musical meditation on times of trouble in our human experience and the path to healing. Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms depicts life-affirming hope for brotherhood and peace, and Carlos Simon’s Brea(d)th provides a “moving, yearning, admonition for repair” in response to the death of George Floyd. The powerful spoken words – performed by librettist Marc Bamuthi Joseph – reflect on sacrifice, loss, and strength and call for a better tomorrow.
Cantate seeks to maintain an equitable, safe and welcoming environment for all who participate in its various activities and functions, both in-person and virtually. We welcome musicians and volunteers of diverse backgrounds, abilities, and creeds, and strive to create an inclusive and creatively stimulating community. Therefore, discrimination and harassment of any nature will not be tolerated.