Welcome to the St Charles Singers
Our 25th Season
"One of those wonderful, down-home Midwestern American ensembles offering solid technique and shimmering, well-balanced choral textures." — American Record Guide
The St. Charles Singers, an international concert and recording ensemble based in Chicago’s western suburbs, will conclude its 25th anniversary season with a concert program highlighting works written expressly for them — including two world premieres.
The chamber choir of some 30 voices will present “A Perfectly Fitting Finale: Works Written for the St. Charles Singers” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 6, at Baker Memorial United Methodist Church, 307 Cedar Ave., St. Charles; and 4 p.m. Sunday, June 7, at St. Michael Church, 310 S. Wheaton Ave., Wheaton. Single concert tickets are $30 for adult general admission, $20 for seniors 65 and older, and $10 for full-time students 23 and under. Tickets and information: (630) 513-5272; www.stcharlessingers.com.
The mixed-voice ensemble will give the world premiere of the Lincoln Cantata by prominent Hungarian composer Gyula Fekete. It was commissioned by the St. Charles Singers and is dedicated to the ensemble.
The cantata is a single-movement work for full choir and string quartet. Jeffrey Hunt, founder and artistic director of the St. Charles Singers, describes it as “very tonal, with a modern Romantic feel and sound.”
It’s a tribute to democracy and statesmanship written to coincide with the Abraham Lincoln bicentennial. The work incorporates excerpts from the writings of Lincoln and Árpád Göncz, the first democratically elected president of the modern Republic of Hungary and a national hero (whom Fekete once met on an overseas airline flight between Hungary and the U.S.).
Fittingly, some songs on the program are about the warm-weather season, others are about songs and singing.
In the latter category is the festive “Let All the World in Ev’ry Corner Sing” by Robert A. Boyd of suburban Westmont, Ill., which will receive its world premiere.
The song, scored for choir with piano accompaniment, is a musical setting of a sacred poem written by 17th-century English poet George Herbert. Boyd calls it a “wonderful and exciting text.”
The song was commissioned by and is dedicated to the St. Charles Singers. Boyd has been singing in the tenor section of the choir since 2000.
Legendary British-born jazz pianist, arranger, and composer George Shearing wrote the swing-infused “Songs and Sonnets from Shakespeare” for the St. Charles Singers in 1999. The ensemble gave the premiere on July 9 of that year.
The piece, written for full choir, piano, and bass, was edited by none other than England’s John Rutter, a friend of the ensemble and, in the view of many, the greatest contemporary choral composer in the English-speaking world. Rutter was guest conductor of the St. Charles Singers for the 1999 premiere, with Shearing himself at the piano. The St. Charles Singers last performed this piece at a 2000 concert in Cambridge, England.
The ensemble will perform songs by American arrangers and composers William Dawson, Alice Parker, Robert Shaw, and Ronald Staheli —including Staheli’s arrangement of the early American folk hymn “How Can I Keep from Singing” — and Swedish composer Waldemar Ahlen’s tribute to springtime, “The Earth Adorned.”
A set of traditional folk songs of the British Isles will include arrangements by Englishmen Sir David Willcocks, John Rutter, Jeremy Jackman, and Daryl Runswick; and “I Have Had Singing,” arranged by noted American choral composer and director Steven Sametz of Lehigh University.
An attendee at our December concert writes:
"My wife and I would like to express to you and the St. Charles Singers our warmest thanks for the program you presented this last week at the Baker Memorial UM Church. Since living in Cambridge for three years and being inspired by the great choral tradition which marks the city, we have been in some despair thinking that we would never find the likes here in Chicago. The Kings College Choir comes infrequently! But then we heard the St. Charles Singers. We remarked that this was by far the best choral event we have been to since moving to Wheaton in 1996 – we well understand why you were invited to Ely. Thank you and the singers for your joyful and careful labor of love. We look forward to hearing you again."
