Stand

Saturday, April 25, 2026, 5:00 p.m.
Christ Episcopal Church
4001 Franklin St., Kensington, Md.

STAND

Cantate Chamber Singers

Sally McLain and Andrew Nixon, violins
Michael Chong, viola
Stephen Czarkowski, cello
Yoshiaki Horiguchi, bass
Andrew Earle Simpson, piano

Welcome to Cantate’s interactive program for STAND. Within the program, select a title to view its text. Use “back to top” to return here.

Program

About Cantate

About Josíah Garza

About Roberto N. Ifill

Texts

A Note of Thanks

Join us for Cantate’s next concert: RISE

Words From Our Partners

Program

Kenneth Chamberlain Sr., 68: “Officers, why do you have your guns out?”

Trayvon Martin, 17: “What are you following me for?”

Amadou Diallo, 23: “Mom, I’m going to college.”

Jack Mountain, soloist

Michael Brown, 18: “I don’t have a gun! STOP!”

Oscar Grant III, 22: “You shot me!”

John Crawford III, 22: “It’s not real.” 

Eric Garner, 43: “I can’t breathe.”

Renée Good, 37: “It’s OK, dude, I’m not mad at you.”

INTERMISSION

Cantate Young Composers’ Competition Winner

Ellen Kliman, Jeanne Morin, and Alun Thomas, soloists

Carolyn Chuhta, soloist

Devin Osborne, soloist

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ABOUT CANTATE

Cantate Chamber Singers (CCS) performs choral literature of the past five centuries, championing neglected masterpieces and 20th- and 21st-century music, including premieres of choral works commissioned from young and diverse composers. CCS was founded in 1984 and has been under the direction of Victoria Gau since 2019. Cantate now encompasses CCS, Cantate Concert Choir (founded 2021), and the Summer Choral Institute (in partnership with Montgomery College), as well as the Lift Every Voice oratorio fellowship for pre-professional singers and the biennial Young Composers’ Competition, both of which provide paid opportunities for performance, training, and advancement to emerging artists. Learn more about Cantate here, including our pledge to equity.

Want to sing with us? Cantate singers are auditioned community volunteers from Montgomery County and surrounding areas in the D.C. region. Auditions for Cantate’s Chamber Singers and Concert Choir are held in June each year. Tenors and basses are welcome to audition anytime.

Victoria Gau, Artistic Director

Lauded by critics for her “strong sense of style and drama” (The Washington Post) and her “enthusiastic and perceptive conducting,” conductor Victoria Gau brings a wide range of musical experience and expertise to her work. She has been the artistic director of Cantate since 2019 and founded Cantate Concert Choir in 2021. In addition to her role as Artistic Director of Cantate, she is in her 29th season as Artistic Director and Conductor of Capital City Symphony (D.C.). Read more about Maestra Gau.

Andrew Earle Simpson, Keyboard Artist

Andrew Earle Simpson, Cantate Chamber Singers’ keyboard artist since 2007, is ordinary (full) professor and founder/director of the Master of Music, Stage Music Emphasis Composition program at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art at The Catholic University of America and a composer whose most recent projects reflect an interest in theatrical music and humanistic subjects. Read more about Andrew Earle Simpson.

CANTATE CHAMBER SINGERS

Soprano

Annette Anfinrud
Ellen Beard
Clara Capili
Paula Chipman
Caitlin Garry
Sarah Kerr
Ellen Kliman
Chelsea Bromstad Lee
Maria Lostoski
Lorna Neill

Alto/countertenor

Stephanie Cabell
Carolyn A. Chuhta
Phyllis Fong
Martha J. Hersman
Jeanne Morin
Patricia Pillsbury
Deborah Silberman
John Wiecking

Tenor

Deirdre Feehan
Nick Hopwood
Jack Mountain
David O’Dette
Doug Throckmorton

Bass

Ulf Ekernas
Bert Ifill
Kent Mikkelsen
Devin Osborne
Dennis Reece
Alun Thomas
Dennis Tosh

ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF & VOLUNTEERS

Cara Schaefer, Executive Director
Drew Cahoon, Production Manager
Martha J. Hersman, Chorus Manager, Chamber Singers
Chelsea Bromstad Lee, Program Design
Dennis Tosh, Copyeditor

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

William Newhouse, Board Chair
Roberto Ifill, Vice Chair
John Wiecking, Treasurer
Robert Gerard, Secretary
Ellen Beard
Sara M. Josey
Kent Mikkelsen
Alison Ottenbreit
Lorna Neill, Cantate Chamber Singers Representative
Katherine Schnorrenberg, Cantate Concert Choir Representative

EX-OFFICIO

Victoria Gau
Cara Schaefer

ADVISORY BOARD

Judith F. Davis, Coordinator Emeritus, Young Composers’ Competition
Rosa Lamoreaux
Laurel Ohlson
Philip J. Padgett
Scott Tucker
Bruce D. Wilson

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ABOUT JOSíAH GARZA

Josíah Garza is an interdisciplinary artist hailing from the Mexican American border of South Texas. As a composer, educator, and storyteller, he roots his work in communication and collaboration with oppressed communities. As a witness to society, he aims to capture our world’s shared history to draw understanding from the hazy moments between our lives. Josíah was raised in the arts, and his childhood studying percussion, visual art, contemporary dance, and traditional Mexican ballet folklorico evolved his practice into a dialogue across artistic mediums. Whether through music-theatre, living-art-installation, or spoken-word performance, his work is an extension of the stories he seeks to tell and the moments he aims to piece together in a concept of survival known as pachada.

Josíah is currently a Pathways to DMA Fellow of the Peabody Institute, set to earn his doctorate in music composition under the direction of Sky Macklay. As a Pathways Fellow, he works as a citizen-artist between the academy and society, and has become a Presser Graduate Music Awardee to found and direct the interdisciplinary arts collective Wieldflower Arts. Josíah received the First Prize in Classical Composition at the Inaugural Ruth Wales du Pont Collegiate Composition Competition and was previously the composer-in-residence of the Sarah and Ernest Butler Opera Center’s 20th anniversary season commissioned for his one-act opera, MARIA, with the librettist Demian Chavez-Galvan. Based on the life of his grandmother, this work is an effort towards healing generational traumas of racism, domestic violence, and substance abuse. MARIA earned the 2024 University of Texas Co-op George H. Mitchell Grand Prize for expanding research into artmaking as humanizing practice. Josíah is named a Presser Scholar for his achievements, and he is honored to be joining the faculty of The Walden School’s Young Musicians Program in the summer of 2026 inspiring the future of creative musicians.

ABOUT ROBERTO N. IFILL

Roberto N. (Bert) Ifill has been singing with Cantate since the 2002-2003 season, primarily in the Bass I section. He is a retired economics professor. He has tried his hand at various arts, including writing poetry, composing and arranging music, and dabbling in abstract art. His greatest honor has been to work with Andrew Simpson on a number of choral works commissioned by Cantate. He is grateful that a few of his compositions have been performed by Cantate, including an arrangement of “Deep River” and “O Vos Omnes.” The composition premiering on this concert, “Lullaby for Renée,” is an extension of the “Seven Last Words of the Unarmed.”

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TEXTS

Renée Good, 37: “It’s OK, dude, I’m not mad at you.”

Notes from the composer: Like the seven men featured in “Seven Last Words of the Unarmed,” Renée Good was senselessly killed under the color of authority. Unlike those other victims, her final words were not ones of anguish, anger, disbelief or even innocent obliviousness; they were words meant to calm, de-escalate a tense situation, even to show compassion. As I thought of her final words—“It’s OK, dude; I’m not mad at you,” the immediate thought was a gentle lullaby, as befitting the reports of Ms. Good’s character following her death. I also thought of Steve Reich’s quietly devastating piece, “Come Out,” which repeats the testimony of a young man brutalized by New York City police during the 1960’s. In both cases, the musical materials are simple, but I hope that the cumulative effect of “Lullaby” will be both a tribute to a woman dedicated to peaceful protest and a reminder that unaccountable violence against the innocent is a universal tragedy.

Eye for eye and the world goes blind,
And how deep that darkness,
And the light nowhere to find
Life for life, and the killing goes on
Hate feeds hate in a bitter feast
And how deep that darkness
Turns humankind into a hungry beast
Give us light that we may see.

Notes from the Composer: Something frozen prays for warmth. To witness melting, is to have one’s heart struck as if it were a bell. We see this ringing, the pealing of the bells in glaciers fading from our Earth, or when our neighbors are diluted from their homes – it rings from piles of once-frozen food rotting on sidewalks, feeding no one. It’s as if the mass freezing of our hearts has wrung us out to dry and choked us from the compassion with which we were born. For some, melting is a choice. Again, I ring, for some, melting is a choice. Something frozen prays for warmth. When I witness something frozen, I hear the pealing of its being and its melting surface screaming:

“Remember me /when I am nary but a puddle!
Lest they win, /with all their frozen, jagged edges.
Warm them, /and so ensure a hope-born cradle.
Melt, /and may together will they hear us?
/A beating heart and yes, its muddle.
For a thaw will leave them sharpless.
A plea against cold metal.
Hope is all that warms us.
That melting fable.
May it free us,
A simple
Ice so
dull.”

“Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.” —Luke 11:17

“Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another.” —Romans 14:19

“And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which they possessed was their own; but they had all things common.” —Acts 4:32

Bright morning stars are rising,
Bright morning stars are rising,
Bright morning stars are rising;
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.

Oh, where are our dear fathers?
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.
They are down in the valley praying;
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.

Oh where are our dear mothers?
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.
They have gone to heaven shouting;
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.

Oh where are our dear children?
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.
They’re upon the earth a-dancing;
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.

Bright morning stars are rising,
Bright morning stars are rising,
Bright morning stars are rising;
Day’s a-breaking in my soul.

A NOTE OF THANKS

Cantate would like to thank…

• the generous supporter who sponsored the Chamber Singers’ concert venues for the 2025-2026 season
• the staff and residents of Ingleside at Rock Creek for providing rehearsal space for the chorus
• Temple Shalom for providing meeting space for the Board
• our volunteers: box office staff, ushers, chorus managers, program designer, proofreader, and more

Cantate’s 2025–2026 Concert Season is supported in part by funding from the Montgomery County government and the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, the Maryland State Arts Council, and The National Endowment for the Arts.

Cantate is also supported by the generous donations and underwriting of individuals and corporations, whose support we warmly welcome.

Learn more about Cantate’s donors and how you can support Cantate.

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Join us for Cantate’s next concert: RISE

Saturday, May 9, 2026 • 5:00 p.m.
Church of the Epiphany
1317 G St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005

Our season finale, a collaboration between Cantate Concert Choir and Capital City Symphony, lifts us toward joy and shared humanity. In Beethoven’s iconic Symphony No. 9, we find hope, friendship, and a radiant Ode to Joy. The program opens with beloved choral miniatures by Felix Mendelssohn, Gabriel Fauré, and Ingrid Stölzel that remind us of music’s power to uplift and bring us together. Featuring exceptional vocal soloists including Jennifer Casey Cabot, soprano; Cara Schaefer, mezzo-soprano; Louis Tiemann, tenor; and Jim Williams, bass.

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Words From Our Partners

Select the partner’s image to learn more.

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