03.12.06
Cantus presents music of real depth as it entertains
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Michael Anthony

Except for a few pop songs and lately, a couple of movies, the artistic response to the Iraq War has been quiet. Cantus, the enterprising male chorus, has started the ball rolling by commissioning a work by Lee Hoiby, Private First Class Jesse Givens, which it premiered at the group's 10th anniversary concert Friday night. The group sang to a packed house at First Lutheran Church of Columbia Heights.

Hoiby's text is drawn from a touching letter that Jesse Givens wrote to his wife in case he should be killed in action, which happened in the spring of 2003. The letter was included in an HBO documentary, "Last Letters Home." Wisely, Hoiby has let Givens' words sing out clearly while retaining, in the music, a definite shape. This was one of those rare occasions where one didn't have to have the text to understand every word, a tribute in part to these nine singers' skill at articulation. Hoiby's piece was paired with a powerful and richly harmonized work by Kurt Bestor, "Prayer of the Children," a response to the bombing of a children's hospital in Bosnia.

In a nice touch for its anniversary concert, Cantus invited 10 alumni singers to join them in several of the numbers. Three renowned choral conductors, all of whom have been mentors, also participated: Dale Warland; Anton Armstrong, conductor of the St. Olaf Choir; and Weston Noble, former director of the Nordic Choir at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

Cantus is so engaging that it's easy to forget how large their accomplishment has been. Originating as four students at St. Olaf, the group, along with Chanticleer, is one of only two full-time professional choruses in the country (not counting a few opera choruses). They have developed a large and loyal Twin Cities following, too, as was clear in the warm response the group received Friday night.

They manage to entertain while presenting music of real depth. Even their experiments are fun, adding a jazz line, for instance, on vibraphone by the skillful David Hagedorn, to a ninth-century chant as the program's curtain raiser, or enhancing the drama of Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" with cello (Laura Sewell) and guitar (Albert Jordan), and Tim Takach taking the solo vocal. Near the end, Jordan proved to be a master of gospel melisma in Takach's finger-snapping chart of Smoky Robinson's classic "Who's Loving You," an early Michael Jackson hit. The closer was Franz Biebl's gentle, caressing "Ave Maria," immaculately sung. One expects that Cantus will sing its 20th-anniversary concert just as elegantly.