05.03.04
Cantus concert: varied repertoire, joyful, rich sound
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Michael Anthony

Cantus, the busy, professional male chorus that got its start as a student group at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., gives most of its concerts on tour around the country.

The group -- 10 singers, though currently nine -- does have a local series, however, and is wrapping that up for the season with four concerts, the first of which was Saturday at First Lutheran Church of Columbia Heights. The space is unusual for a church, wide rather than long, and its reverberant acoustics -- more like a concert hall than a church -- offered consistently bright, clear sound in what was a well-chosen and substantial program of choral rarities, for which the able accompanist was pianist Charles Kemper.

Interesting works in both French and German were on the program. The rich-toned violinist Cara Wilson served as the soloist in Faure's "Cantique de Jean Racine." But the chief focus Saturday night turned on English music, especially that vital thread that starts with the Dublin-born C. Villiers Stanford and his two students at the Royal Academy of Music, Holst and Vaughan Williams, and ends up decades later with Benjamin Britten and his wry "Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Bernard."

Baritone Kelvin Chan captured just the right tone of intrepid patriotism in Stanford's cantata from 1904, "Songs of the Sea." Imagine Russell Crowe's ship's captain in the recent movie "Master and Commander" singing of the glories of the British empire and you get the picture. Colonialism is not so heartily endorsed these days, but there was no denying the rich sentiment of the earnest fourth song, "Homeward Bound." Between Stanford and Holst's engaging "Choral Rig Veda," tenor Michael Hanawalt brought out the yearning in a lovely version of "Ständchen" one of Schubert's several Serenades. Michael Head's pungently lyrical setting of Shakespeare's "How Sweet the Moonlight Sleeps" was another highlight of the evening.

To all this varied and challenging repertoire the singers of Cantus brought richness of sound and well-practiced musicianship. Singing full-out, they sound like 20 or 30 voices -- and maybe just two or three at their softest. And they really communicate, not just with the audience but with each other -- a necessity, since they have no conductor.

They also seem to really enjoy singing, even the most intricate music, and that enjoyment proved contagious Saturday night.