Chanticleer dives deep in its 30th anniversary concert series

Chanticleer, the nation’s dominant ensemble among men’s vocal groups, has polished up a repertoire of some 10 hymns and spirited Latin arrangements and on May 15 took to the road for a two-week tour on El Camino Real. The series of shows, billed “El Camino Real: Chanticleer Travels the Mission Road,” will trace the historical route that once connected the Spanish missions along a wilderness route as far south as Baja California and northward to Sonoma, with somber stone churches spaced a day’s journey apart along the highway. The concert series arrives as a musically exciting exploration of sounds long ago abandoned as Spain’s endeavors in the New World crumbled. The series is also an ode to Chanticleer’s 30th anniversary, and the Camino Real tour will conclude at Mission Dolores in San Francisco, where the group performed its first concert ever in 1978.

Chanticleer will visit Santa Cruz on May 27 for a performance at our own Mission church. Chanticleer General Director Christine Bullin says audience members can expect a “dancey” musical sound, with instrumental and vocal improvisation backed by lively percussion, an element unique to California’s music of the Baroque era. Composers of the time and place wrote percussion parts into the Music of the Missions as an active means of connecting emotionally to the indigenous Americans that the Franciscan monks would employ to perform the pieces in their stodgy churches.

“This incorporation of percussion gave the Music of the Missions a very folksy, distinct California style,” said Jon Finck of Encore Communications in San Francisco, where Chanticleer will perform two shows during the tour.

The Chanticleer concert series includes the works of several composers. Juan Bautista Sancho’s “Misa en Sol” will be sung in Latin. Other music from anonymous 18th century composers will flesh out the set list, while the works of the highly accomplished Manuel de Sumaya will dominate the 70-minute performance. Many of these pieces have been neither performed nor heard since the Baroque, as just several years have passed since more than 50 of Sumaya’s compositions were discovered in Mexico City Cathedral.

Cal Poly professor of music Craig Russell calls the find “a godsend.” Russell has spent two years piecing together missing elements of the music, as some of the written parts were absent from the preserved manuscripts, and in October he and Chanticleer music director Joseph Jennings collaborated to arrange the final touches for performance by the Grammy-winning voices of Chanticleer.

Bullin notes that the music is deeply religious, giving the sound a heartening beauty.

“The power of this music comes out if you imagine the missions during this time period, which was really a wild time in California. To realize that there was some very sophisticated music coming out of this environment is very impressive.”    

On the Camino Real tour, two violins, a cello, a guitar and a harp will support Chanticleer. While seating may be limited for some of the shows (ticket info below), Chanticleer is in the process of recording their Mexican Baroque set list for a CD release in the fall of 2008. A You Tube internet presence will almost certainly follow, and this time around, for the honor of antiquity and the ears of posterity, the Music of the Missions will not fade away.

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