Drumming at Red Lake

On March 1st, Cantus visited the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Northern Minnesota. It was an amazing experience...one that none of us will ever forget! We sang for over 600 elementary school students in the afternoon, and in the evening we held a concert for the general community.

In between these two events we were blessed to see several performance by the elementary school's dance troupe, accompanied by an authentic drumming circle. We decided it would be great to post one of the videos we recorded that day. You could feel the gymnasium's bleachers shaking with each beat of the drum, and the dancers' intricate clothing chimed away with other fascinating sounds.

We hope you enjoy!

All Is Calm: beginnings!

Hello Everyone!

After a week off for Thanksgiving, it's exciting to get back to blogging after the GiveMN.org push. Remember though, even if you didn't have a chance to donate on November 17th, GiveMN.org's "Give to the Max" day, you can STILL donate to Cantus. Just visit Cantus' GiveMN page and go from there!

We started our major December tour several days ago, performing "All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914" for a sold-out audience at Texas A & M University in College Station. This marks our third year working on "All Is Calm", and the great thing about this production is that it never gets old. Here's a fan of Cantus on what she thought of the show:

"It was one of the best Christmas shows I've ever seen! I loved the history and the music, especially the way in which the show shared a true story I've never heard before. It combines Christmas spirit with a greater appreciation for the individual soldiers in WWI." - Jennifer

We, as the performers, seem to enjoy working on this show more and more each year. Despite it only being around an hour long, it is so effective. We've constantly had people talk about why they love it, whether at home or from our national tours...here another quote from Facebook:

"I saw it in Sioux Falls last December and it was wonderful. It really brought back the hope that is supposed to be what Christmas is representative of. The idea that in time of war the opposing sides could be at peace with each other provides a wonderful demonstration of peace which is what Christmas is all about. Can't wait to see it again this Christmas!" - Kylie

We're going to be performing "All Is Calm" again today, at California State University in Fullerton. They have a wonderful concert hall on campus there, where we performed last year's "While You Are Alive" tour program this past spring!

But blogging, in my opinion, wouldn't be complete without some sort of Cantus humor...so here's a video we took on our most recent "Elemental" tour of a chair in our hotel. The chair just "spoke" to Aaron...

Quick change on tour!

Shahzore suggested I show the obvious differences between where we woke up this morning (Glenwood Springs, Colorado), and where we ended up (Joplin, Missouri) through a couple of pictures.

But it's more than that. This is priceless.

This was hour 1 through 2 of our drive today:





















...This was hour 3 through 13:




What a difference!!

Some pictures of tour

We've traveled a long way from Minocqua, and there have been many pictures taken since then! After Minocqua was Antigo and Sheboygan in Wisconsin(on Gary's birthday!). In Sheboygan, the theater looked very small from the outside, but it turned out to be one of the most beautiful theaters on the tour (and some of the best acoustics too).

Then we went on to Sioux City, IA, and then to Norfolk, Nebraska, where we had ANOTHER little mistake having to do with our press. Remember "Sanctus"? It turns out our press photo was used twice on their posters for the Allied Concert Series, once for Cantus, and the other for...The Harry James Orchestra?


After Norfolk was Rapid City, IA, and while traveling from Rapid City to Butte, Montana, we stopped by Mount Rushmore. It was really great to get some pictures of the whole of Cantus in front of the monument. We also stopped by the always in progress Crazy Horse Monument, which was amazing (and HUGE!).



Most recently, we've been in Glenwood Springs, where we took advantage of the world's largest hot spring pool. The sulfur may have made us smell, but we were more relaxed (by far) than at any other point of the tour thusfar!

Today we're driving to Joplin, MO (A long, long drive), so send us good vibes, and we'll write again soon!

Victims of Spellcheck?!

After enjoying a good show in Willmar MN the night before, and making an emergency stop back in the Twin Cities for some percussion and clothes we'd forgotten to pack, we pulled into our Wisconsin concert venue to find that perhaps we shouldn't have made the trip! It appeared that unfortunately another ensemble was scheduled to perform:

We never got to the bottom of it, but at least the programs had the right information (and the correct group name) printed, with only minor confusion from the audience (eek).

So, Minocqua was a pretty little lake town, and we are enjoying the start of Autumn, surrounded by trees that are just beginning to change into pretty reds, yellows, and oranges. A few of us took an opportunity to take walks around town, or exercise across the road by lakeside. After Antigo tonight, we head for two days to Sheboygan, where will have a night off to rest.

This is what we do

Hello, folks. Since it's my first post on this here blog, I thought I'd introduce myself. My name is Tim Takach, and I've been singing in Cantus forever. Seriously. This is the end of my 13th year singing bass, and I love it. I'm also the graphic designer for the group, and I'm a professional composer on the side. Here's a bit more about me.

When we go on the road, there' a lot of work to be done. First of all, there are the concerts, which on an average concert day keep us scheduled from about 3:00pm until 10:00pm. We also do educational outreach programs, which happen about 4-5 times per tour, and those usually keep us busy for 2-3 hours per day. And then there's the driving. Oh yes, the driving. Sometimes we fly, but usually, we pile into sweet, sweet minivans and "roam around the world" (yes, it's a lyric from the b52s. We're in the middle of our Covers concerts...).

So that begs the question, what do we do when we don't have to be around each other all the time? The answer, surprisingly, is that we spend even more time with each other. Movies (either on the theater or on DVD), board games, frisbee games, work outs, hotel swimming pools, dinner outings, and many other things beckon to us as we travel. Once, eight of us went bargain hunting at Kohl's. I know. Please don't tell anyone.

However, having fun and playing games rule our off hours, and we take any chance we get to try a new game. Paul introduced us to a game he had played called Telephone Pictionary. He bugged us for months to try it, and we finally got around to playing during our March tour.

Here's the scoop:

Everyone sits in a circle, with a stack of paper in front of them.

Everyone write a phrase or on their page, and then passes it to the left.

That person reads the phrase, and then tries to capture it in a drawing on another sheet, and then passes their drawing to the left.

The next person looks at the drawing, and writes down what they think the original phrase was, then passes that to their left.

The next person looks at the new interpreted phrase and tries to capture it in a drawing.

See where this is going?

By the time you get your own original back, it is supported by slowly degrading versions of what you wrote down. Then you so a bit of show and tell, so everyone can see how the original answer got skewed. So, I'm posting a couple of examples from our recent game. See what you think they are. Comment if you like.

Example #1:

You know, I think I might even need a refresher as to what this was. Hey Cactus guys, want to weigh in?

Example #2:

This had something to do with shoefly pie, and ended up with Tom Selleck, apparantly.

Example #3:

Anyone want to guess?

Thanks for your time, and as always, thanks for your support of Cantus. See you next time!

Tim

Three P's

Wow, two posts in one night, watch out.

I thought I would upload a few of my favorite photos from the last two tours. I call this post the Three P's (and yes, I know that this is technically an incorrect use of an apostrophe. Call it, "folksy.")

The first P stands for Pretzels. I love soft pretzels and in Amherst, MA I had the biggest soft pretzel ever. It was covered with melted, smoked cheddar cheese and served with spicy mustard. Mmmm.





The second P stands for Puppets (technically marionettes) . We stopped at a truck stop in Illinois that has this glass case full of dancing marionettes. The restaurant at the truck stop had amazing baked goods, including french pastries. I'm sure most truck drivers appreciate an eclair, Napoleon and a quick puppet show before hitting the road for another 15 hour shift. . .


The last but not least P stands for People. We've spent the last couple of days in Cedar Falls, IA. It's a cute, little river town that is also home to the University of Northern Iowa. The folks here have been very hospitable and we've had some great restaurant experiences. While in charming downtown Cedar Falls I happened upon a travel agency that bears my last name! I've never met anybody outside of my family with the last name, "Humble" so I was pretty excited!

We head home tomorrow to put together our collaboration with the James Sewell Ballet. Peace!

Aaron

Changing Spaces

We have ended our long New England tour successfully, and as usual, we have been met with unfailing kindness at every turn. We are so grateful to our fans and supporters, and will continue to bring you the highest level of music that we can, as our way of saying thanks for believing in us.
This has been a very interesting tour in terms of singing in different spaces. As many of you may know, the physical setting in which a group sings brings all sorts of benefits and challenges. The greatest challenge of all is adapting to each new room! A marble cathedral obviously sounds different than a conference room with padded walls and carpet, but it even goes beyond that. The size and shape of the room, instrumentation, ambient noise, size of the stage, and number of people in attendance, among other things all affect the sound that the audience and performers hear. For example, we just performed at the Northeastern Music Educators’ National Conference at the Providence Convention Center. They had to pack about 1,000 (rather enthusiastic) fans into the Grand Ballroom, which was the widest space that we’ve performed in recent memory. There were three sections, one directly in front of the stage that was flanked by two sections that had to watch us on live telecast in the same room! And on the very same tour, we sang in an intimate recital hall built especially for chamber music and smaller recitals, which was great for hearing, but since we don’t get to sing in spaces like that often, we had to adjust for the new sounds of different musical lines, or even different voices that we don’t hear every concert.
So, how do we deal with the ever changing scenery? One of the most important things for us is having a flexible and adaptable plan for performance that we’re able to implement during the rehearsal before the show. On an average concert day, we will have a two hour rehearsal before each show to figure out all sorts of technical elements of the night’s show. The other purpose of the rehearsal is to listen to the sound of the hall as our voices (individually and collectively) figure out how to fit into the space. We’ll make sure that we listen from stage as well as a few guys individually in the hall (when they’re not singing an important part on stage, of course) just to get a sense of what an audience member would hear.
Some important things that we try to remember as we are figuring out the acoustic: we try to sing with how our body tells us, not necessarily what we hear. The spaces can give weird feedback, so it’s not always to our benefit to “give ourselves voice lessons” as we sing. If something is not going well, we also try to stop often so we are not tiring ourselves out with things that aren’t working. On the flip side, we also try not to stop too often for every little strange thing that we hear, it’s important for us to try to simulate the experience trying to sing through clicks in the hall, or funny noises from our own voices during the show, when we can’t stop!
Once we’ve gotten through all of that stuff for the rehearsal, we just try to be as flexible during the performance as possible. Until you start the concert, it’s not possible to know how the sound is affected by the number of people in the audience, what you might feel like under stage lights after an hour, or even how your voice responds to a triple thick strawberry milkshake right before you go on stage (well, I suppose there are some things you can guess at).
The trust that we cultivate, and the amount of time that we spend together gives us the ability to know a lot about the voices of the other eight guys in the arc. We’re very lucky to be able to spend this much time together, but the amount of listening and connecting can start immediately in any group of musicians, if you work at it.
If you have any questions about the way we work, please don’t hesitate to ask us. You’ll find our contact information at the “Connect” heading of our website.

Eric Hopkins meets Eric Hopkins

I'm sitting here in Amherst, MA, in our hotel room resting up after our drive from Maine. We are currently in residence with the University of Massachusetts (aka: UMass) for the rest of this week before we wrap up our NE tour in Providence and Boston. Since this is my first blog post for Cantus Tales (and my first blog EVER!) I should introduce myself...My name is Eric N. Hopkins and I am in my second year singing Tenor with Cantus. I grew up on a hobby farm with sheep outside of Oregon, Illinois, a small town 100 miles west of Chicago. I think I came out of the womb singing (or maybe I was just fighting with my twin sister Edie for room!). I attended Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, receiving my Bachelor of Arts in Vocal Music in 1999. Being at Luther you would always hear about St. Olaf College, the "birthplace" of Cantus. They are both great music schools of the Lutheran tradition, and only two and a half hours apart from each other. After college I moved to Minneapolis and sang with many part-time choral groups including the Dale Warland Singers and then The Singers-Minnesota Choral Artists. Cantus was alive and well in the Twin Cities, but I never thought I would ever be a part of them. It always seemed like such a fraternity and was off my radar. I heard of an opening for Cantus through a friend. I auditioned and was offered the position in January 2008. Since then I have been immersed into the Cantus lifestyle: rehearsing full-time, touring across the country, and memorizing music--AAARRGH! It was hard at first to get back into the routine of memorizing music, but it has become second-nature now.

A few years ago I started "googling" my own name to see what would come up. Actually not much...But the one person who did appear in every search was a watercolor artist in Maine. Once I knew we were going to Maine on a tour this spring, I did some research and found out that the artist Eric Hopkins lived just a few miles from where we were performing! I emailed Eric and he was excited. He brought his mother to the concert and we met afterward. The first thing his mother said to me is that I look just like her other son David. I responded by saying the "other" Eric looks just like Gary from Cantus! After much conversation we discovered that we are in fact distant cousins having the same relative Stephen Hopkins, who came to America on the Mayflower. Eric invited us to his gallery in Rockland, the next town south of Camden. A group of us from Cantus drove down Highway 1 to Rockland and visited the gallery. Eric's watercolors are fabulous. He uses huge canvases and bold colors to display the rocky and pine tree-laden coast and islands of Maine, where he has lived his whole life. We met his son Ian, and saw his expansive work space where he is currently experimenting with silk scarves and ties. It was great to be able to share my art and have Eric share his art with us. I can't wait to visit Maine again and hopefully spend more time with my new cousin!

Brand New Alice Tully Hall

Hello All,

My name is Dashon Burton, and I am the Junior Senator of the Baritone Commonwealth of Cantus, and wish to have the floor to speak...

Cantus just arrived in NYC yesterday afternoon after some shady navigating (which way do we go, Dashon?). This is sort of a hometown for me, as I spent much of my childhood here, so it's always wonderful to see the sights, have some lovely food, take in the wonderful civil engineering that can fit 400 million people into 17 square feet (numbers are approximate).

After visiting with some friends, I met up with Cantus tenor Paul Rudoi at the brand new Alice Tully Hall (photo by Iwan Baan) at Lincoln Center. First, I have to echo Paul's sentiments: "50% of why I am here is for the orchestra, and the other 50% is for the architecture." It's an absolutely stunning building to see, and just to walk in is amazing too.

The celebrated orchestra was playing for the Opening Nights Festival which is ongoing until March 8. Last night, Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen renewed my sense of some very familiar works to me. Beethoven's First and Seventh symphonies were served with great vigor, and it's obvious that their continued dedication to this monumental cycle will produce more wonderful concerts and recordings. The camaraderie of the musicians was evident, and their structure is very similar to the way that Cantus started, which is always amazing to see. From their program bio: "Founded in 1980, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen initially consisted of a group of outstanding music students who drew up a grassroots constitution in order to optimally motivate the individual members both personally and musically ... The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen is organized as a company in which the musicians are sole partners. Thus they assume full responsibility not only for artistic but financial matters as well." As a chamber musician it is always wonderful to share in the successes of other chamber ensembles as well as be inspired by them.

This virtuosic set of players truly dug into the music. Every bar was infused with life, and rarely have I heard such supreme musical nuance. The musicians played with a sense of clarity that made each line that they wanted you to focus on at the forefront. Mr. Järvi was clearly pleased with the results of his and the rest of the musicians' hard work, and I would say had the best "seat" in the house! Combine the musicians and the wonderful acoustics of the new hall, and you get quite a show. It was a technically, emotionally, and visually wonderful journey through two of my personal favorite Beethoven symphonies, and I couldn't really ask for an artistically better way to start a visit to NYC.

Also, for all of our connected audience across the country who can't make it to the concert at Trinity Wall Street on March 5 at 1PM (EST), just a reminder, they'll be broadcasting it LIVE on the internet, so do tune in!

Oneonta

Hello!

I'm posting from Oneonta, New York, where we, just earlier today, had some educational outreach with various groups around town. We also had a great first concert of the tour there, with an estimated 800 people in attendance, and an encore request to boot (we sang one of our favorites, Biebl's Ave Maria). Above is a picture of the church, and in the distance you can see Tim tuning his autoharp for the concert. The acoustic of the First United Methodist Church was certainly a lot of fun to work in, considering we sing pieces like Lux Aurumque or Deep River. And it was nearby some great places to eat, like the Autumn Cafe or a diner called "Corfu". Here we are preparing for the concert...and our large meal...at Corfu yesterday evening!

Speaking of food, we definitely won't forget our choice of restaurant for dinner on our way to Oneonta! It had been a long first day of tour, between a layover in Milwaukee (or Atlanta for Chris) to the three hour drive from La Guardia. We had difficulties in choosing where to eat, but by the time we really NEEDED to eat there was nothing around! So we decided to stop at a Chinese Restaurant in the middle of nowhere...we took some pictures and ate huge plates of food...

Now we're moving on to Poughkeepsie, where we'll have a masterclass and a concert tomorrow at Vassar College. Check back soon for updates!

End of 2008, Happy New Year, 2009!

Greetings, Cantus fans!

Well, the year ended on a high note with a fantastic national tour of All is Calm, followed by a run at the Pantages Theater, in downtown Minneapolis--this time with a full theatrical production. We garnered more great reviews: All is right with 'All Is Calm', 'All is Calm' delivers joy -- pure and simple, and 'All is Calm' celebrates peace ... in wartime
. It was a real treat to reunite with our actors from last year's premiere of the piece, John Catron, David Roberts, and Alan Sorenson, as well as director Peter Rothstein. The guys all broke off to visit family and friends during the holidays, but now we are all back on the clock, and doing travelling for the group.

We just returned from New York, where we performed a few showcases for the American Performing Arts Presenters conference (trying to drum up some business at some new venues around the country, and finished the week with beautiful performance of Edie Hill's A Sound Like This at the 31st national convention of Chamber Music America. CMA provided the funds for Cantus to commission the piece from Edie--6 ruminations of texts by Kabir, the 15th century Indian mystic, on translation by Minnesota Poet Laureate, Robert Bly. A fantastic multi-movement work, it really captures the sound of music of the spheres. It's such a thrill to sing in New York City, too. We'll be back there again on March 5th to sing at Trinity Church, on Wall Street.

All is Calm touring and xmas update

Hey Gang.

Posting late after our show in Sioux Falls, SD. Just returned from Monk's public house, where some of us were enjoying a nice Belgian beverage to warm up our chilled bodies after the show. Had a nice time hanging out with our good friend Audra, who works for the Washington Pavilion, recoding venue for a few of our albums. We head to Algona Iowa in the morning. We had a great time last week doing our annual Away in a Manger concerts, with cider, cocoa, and hay rides!



We departed soon after to tour All is Calm, first to Irvine California, then two Arizona Shows (way to go 80 degrees!), then New Hampshire, and back to Minnesota for a show at St. Bens. (here's a nice scene...Adam and Paulie on the beach!)




We headed to Wasau, Wisconsin, and now we are in the familiar territory of Sioux Falls. I guess it sounds like a revolving door of cities and venues, but we do get sometimes to hang out in a town long enough to enjoy it. We've spent enough time in Sioux Falls to have favorite joints to eat at, or candy shops to visit.

We look forward to bring ing All is Calm to our home audience in the Cities. Hope to see you there. The shows have been going great, and CD sales have been very good too--don't forget to stuff your stockings with Cantus CDs!!

Driving blues

Safe and sound in Athens GA, we just had a nice dinner and drinks at a great Mexican place next door to the motel. The trip here, though, was a little bit of an adventure. Extremely windy up in the West Virginia hills, but low temperatures wreaked a little havoc on the windshield washers on our van. We figure some other renter must have put some water in with the windshield fluid, because when we opened the hood (this was after trying to keep our van on the road looking through either a haze of white or at the most a tiny clean gap on the windshield), the wiper fluid was basically a big blue ice cube! After a comedy of bad choices for interstate exit ramps we stopped at a Kmart for some new fluid, which we topped off, but it was only 75 miles south of there that the temperature got warm enough for the lines to thaw. Ridiculous.

The actors and director just showed up at the motel, after their own drive from Charlotte this evening, and we are anxious to perform the show tomorrow night. Some of us have relatives that are coming to the show, which always makes the trip a little more special than when we perform only for strangers.

Almost Heaven...West Virginia

Thursday Nov. 20

After a flight to Charlotte NC, our day of travel ended on wooded, windy roads in the mountains of West Virginia. I brought along a new (old) board game based on the crime sprees of Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger, and other gangs. Pretty fun, and we got a lot of the guys to play. I think we were having board game withdrawal. Our show at Concord University in Athens, WV was intimate. We stayed at the beautiful Pipestem State Park lodge (out in the sticks, though), with a homey atmosphere, mountain vistas, and deer--lots of deer!








Tomorrow we meet up with the actors and head to Athens Georgia for our first touring performance of All is Calm at the Univesity of GA. Looking forward to touring that show, and bringing it to other audiences around the country.

Cantus in the South Pt. deux, and Musings of a Touring Tenor.

More pics and news from our Southern Tour:

If you see a familiar face in this picture, you aren't crazy--we want to thank Tom McNichols for stepping in for this tour to cover the paternity leave of tim Takach who, with his wife, welcomed a bouncing baby boy while we were away. Cantus prides itself on being as family-friendly as a touring organization can be, and we were fortunate that Tom (who left the group last season to pursue a solo career in New York) was available and knew a lot of the repertoire already!



We finished our tour in Louisiana--two shows at LSU. The weather was mostly beautiful, so you could find a few of us throwing a frisbee on campus, and later some of the guys headed to the Louisiana State capitol. Here they are in front of the Huey Long statue--Adam riddled us with Louisiana political trivia (appropriate for the week in question, it would seem) for the rest of the trip!




We followed all of this with an afternoon in New Orleans before we headed to the airport in the evening. Bourbon Street was quiet, but blues bands and drinkers were about starting about 2pm. Gumbo, beans and rice, and jambalaya were on the lunch menu, and then we were off to the aeropuerto.






(Nov 11) Just finished a great show at Concordia up at Fargo/Moorhead, and sitting here in this nicer Courtyard Mariott, marveling at the irony that the nicest places to stay (room refrigerators, microwaves, comfortable beds, and friendly staff--that these are invariable the places we only get to stay in one night while we are on tour...

And by nicer, I don't mean frou-frou. The frou-frou joints that cater to business travelers on the high end look nice, but are often lame (expensive daily internet fee, people won't leave you alone)--kind of like a bathroom with an attendant. You know you're going to get stuck paying for being handed something you didn't want in the first place. Anyway, this hotel had the right combination of quiet and service. Breakfast buffet wasn't exorbitant, either. Oh, but don't get me wrong--boutique hotels can be fantastic--those tend to have the big fluffy beds, and niceties. We'd stay at those anytime.

Also, this could be time to mention that Cantus usually doubles up on the rooms. This actually makes us a little more competitive in the market. So you've got a roommate most of the time--and on an intermittent basis, you get the single room (since we have an odd number of singers). Everyone has different sleeping/waking habits, and we mix up the roommates pretty often. You know, this reminds me...we've been very DVD-oriented so far this season, but the board games have yet to be brought along. Guys--hey, let's get it together!!

-gary

Cactus heads south!

Kicked off this two week tour in Tyler TX. Nice crowd, which included our friend Anna Rose Bain, a fantastic young portrait artist who did this lovely drawing of us a couple of years ago.

Cantus returned to Ft. Smith, Arkansas next, where we performed our first show with the Boston Pops last November. It's neat to come back to a venue again, and the turnout was very high--many people who saw us last year.

We headed out to Little Rock next, staying down by the River Market, and the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, which a few of us visited. PIC A perfect venue to visit in this most political of seasons!

The collection details life in the White House and in international politics during the Clinton years, and also featured a special exhibit of amazing Choppers.

By the end of the stop there, we had been treated to fantastic weather, good restaurants, and a post-show tour of the Diamond Bear Brewery! It was a late night, but we got to (heavily) sample all the current production in the front bar, and enjoy the company of the concert presenter's board members and friends of water scientist/brewery part-owner John Czarnecki.



More to come!

2007-08 season wrap-up

We've spent a season traveling the world. Beginning with an African tour, three weeks with the Boston Pops, a hit Christmas show, recording two albums' worth of new music, and finishing the season with a collaboration with Trio Mediaeval at our Kennedy Center debut, Cantus got a well-earned rest at the end of the trail.

After our quick stop in Cleveland with the ladies of Trio Mediaeval, we moved on to the Kennedy Center, performing to a sold-out house (great review here).

The season ended on a high note, though we feel some sadness as we say goodbye to two of our members, Tom McNichols and Michael Jones, who are moving on to other opportunities. Tom's wins of the District and Regional Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions were a big turning point, and we wish him luck as he begins his solo career. Michael Jones' path has taken him to a tour of Les Miserables and to some charity work.


We are looking forward to next season: rehearsals start on the 18th of August, and we have exciting things to share with you as the men of Cantus tour the country again, and sing more locally than ever before. We also welcome two new members of the ensemble for 08-09, bass Chris Foss, and tenor Paul Rudoi. More news about them later.see you during the 2008-09 season!

Pop shows a rousing success!

The chilly weather may not be gone from Minnesota evenings yet, but the air was afire during our sellout weekend of pop shows/recording dates at the Southern Theater. Joined by percussionist extraordinaire Dave Hagedorn, multi-instrumentalist/composer Lee Blaske, and longtime recording engineer and editor-in-chief of Stereophile Magazine John Atkinson, Cantus presented its first-ever all-pop concerts. True to most Cantus shows, we threw lots of interesting sounds into the mix of vocal harmonies, including mandolin, accordion, spoons, washboard, latin percussion, acoustic guitar, bowed and mallet struck vibraphone, glockenspiel, and bass guitar. The songs ranged from classics by the Beach Boys, Curtis Mayfield, and Roy Orbison to dance and avant-pop songs by Deeelite and Bjork, and most everything in between. Tim's new arrangement of the Leonard Cohen classic Hallelujah received a great reception, as did our Aretha Franklin-inspired arrangement of Eleanor Rigby and faux-bluegrass imagining of the White Stripes' Got Her in Your Pocket.

We received a solid review (available here), and sang to packed houses all three nights of the run. Thanks to Luther College's alumni association for hosting an opening night reception at the next-door Town Hall Brewery after the show--guess it pays that we now have a Luther grad (Eric Hopkins) in the group.

We flew immediately the next morning (don't ask how early, please :( ) to Norfolk to sing that evening, kicking off a four-day engagement at the Virginia Arts Festival. We taught at two high schools, and sang in two more venues over the next three days, but also managed to get back to Colonial Williamsburg (we were just there at Xmastime with the Boston Pops) and Jamestown Settlement before our show in Williamsburg on our last night there.

Next time: Trio Mediaeval and our return to Washington DC!

Fun in Milwaukee

After teaching a day-long festival in Muskego, WI, we were surprised to pull into our hotel in another Milwaukee suburb and find a waterpark attached to the place! Also of note were the non-stop wedding receptions and proms that were going on all weekend long. Adam, our Viceroy of Fun (very official title), saw that the Brewers were playing the St. Louis Cardinals Friday, so a few of us headed into town, had dinner with some locals at a great sports bar--the fish and chips was half an entire walleye--and walked to the amazing Miller Park for what turned out to be a captivating bottom of the ninth-bases loaded skin of teeth victory for the Brewers! Jones had a birthday, and during the trip some of us managed to go see Iron Man, too. We always try to have fun on tour.