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Boston-based Cantata Singers Announces 7th Music Director in its 58-year history

GRANT COMMUNICATIONS Massachusetts - New York

Boston-based Cantata Singers Announces Seventh Music Director in its 58-year history     Expanded community engagement initiatives, as well as innovative music performances, will guide the distinguished organization’s next chapter

BOSTON, MA – Following an exciting candidate search begun during the pandemic, Cantata Singers, the 58-year-old ensemble dedicated to presenting fresh, inspiring interpretations of iconic music (particularly the cantatas/choral music of Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach), has completed its music director search after performances with its four highly accomplished finalists. Each candidate spent six weeks with the organization in rehearsals,meetings, and led a performance featuring their own curated program.   The selection, overseen by a search committee, also included input from the staff, musicians, and polls of each concert audience. Selecting one of the four qualified candidates was not an easy task, stated the Board.   In announcing renowned conductor Noah Horn as Cantata Singers’ seventh music director, Christine Swistro, Chair, Board of Trustees, stated, "Music - especially choral music which blends melody, words, and human emotions - is for all people. Cantata Singers aspires to welcome all people into our community, and Noah Horn's February 2022 concert showcased a breathtaking diversity of programming and performers that brought an excited audience to its feet. His work and ideas for Cantata Singers signals the possibilities that lie ahead for our organization. On behalf of the Cantata Singers family, we are thrilled to welcome Noah to Cantata Singers!"   “Noah is simply brilliant... a talented, inclusive difference-maker,” said Nick Adams, Cantata Singers’ Executive Director. “The staff and I couldn't be more excited to welcome him and support his creative vision for moving Cantata Singers forward. As an organization dedicated to community engagement as much as musical performance, I believe our future is very, very bright, and with Noah as a teammate, it’s one in which we hope to show the depth and breadth of what a modern chorus and ensemble can mean to a city like Boston.”   Mr. Horn stated, “I greatly look forward to serving as music director for Cantata Singers. The ensemble has such a storied and accomplished past, and the future looks so bright, with wonderfully passionate and skilled musicians and staff, along with a dedicated, enthusiastic audience and support network. The work of the organization to present excellent music and promote diversity and inclusion drew me in immediately, and after my time this season with the ensemble, I discovered many of the thrilling things that we can accomplish together. Each musician brings a rich background and a beautiful tone to the ensemble. The strong community initiatives and programming inspire me, and I hope to help expand and unify these aspects of the organization. As part of the mission of Cantata Singers, I will work towards to engage with important issues and topics of our time and of the Boston area. I thank Cantata Singers for welcoming me to the organization and can’t wait to begin in the fall with the ensemble.”   Music performances account for only part of Cantata Singers’ activities within the community, with the other focusing on community engagement in Boston and the surrounding area. Amongst its various community initiatives is the 29-year-old Classroom Cantatas, an education initiative in Boston’s under-represented schools led by a wide range of Teaching Artists. Also well-known is The Lullaby Project, a free program in collaboration with Carnegie Hall that pairs pregnant women and new parents with teaching artists to write and sing personal lullabies for their babies, supporting maternal health, aiding childhood development, and strengthening the bond between parent and child.   A vibrant, cultural mainstay in Boston, Massachusetts and the surrounding areas, Cantata Singers is a musical destination, a place where art, community, and history intersect. A uniquely modern ensemble with deep roots in the past, built on a foundation of innovation and versatility, Cantata Singers promotes the rich heritage of choral music inspired by the musical genius of Johann Sebastian Bach alongside more modern works.   Co-founded in 1964, by a group of friends, colleagues, and classmates, Cantata Singers was created with the goal of exploring and performing music not heard anywhere else by the Boston community and surrounding area; specifically, the cantatas/choral canon of Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Today, Cantata Singers offers fresh, inspiring interpretations of iconic music interspersed with intriguing, unfamiliar yet accessible works, including those by women composers and composers of color, whether rarely performed pieces or new compositions by contemporary composers.   Conductor Noah Horn is the seventh musician to guide Cantata Singers from the podium. His distinguished predecessors include David Hoose, John Ferris, Philip Kelsey, John Harbison, Richard P. Kapp and Leo Collins.   The 2022-23 season, the first to be programmed by Noah as Cantata Singers’ new Music Director, will offer expanded community engagement initiatives and innovative music performances, including several ensemble premieres. A full season announcement will be made in July.

ABOUT NOAH HORN As a conductor whose work has been praised as “superb” (The New York Times), “well-prepared and joyful” (Detroit Free Press), “excellent,” and “fluent and fresh” (Opera News), Noah Horn greatly looks forward to his new role as Music Director of the Cantata Singers. He comes to the ensemble having directed choirs and orchestras at the professional, collegiate, and community levels. His other current projects include serving as chorus master for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and artistic director and founder of the professional vocal ensemble Audivi. With Audivi he has conducted historically-informed landmark performances of Bach’s Mass in B minor and Monteverdi’s Vespers, as well as premiering dozens of new compositions and touring several times around the US. He has worked with ensembles in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Turkey, Greece, Canada, and the Philippines.   Committed to celebrating diversity and inclusion in all areas, Noah co-founded and sings with Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble, a group that focuses on a diverse representation in its membership, and which has recently given headliner performances in 2022 at Podium (Canada’s national choral conference) and ACDA’s Southern Regional Convention. He has commissioned dozens of works by composers from a wide variety of cultures and backgrounds, and considers it essential to do the work of advocacy and education with every artistic decision.   An avid educator, Noah has served as director of choral activities and on the music faculty of several universities and colleges, including Oberlin, Williams, Amherst, and Hampshire Colleges, and Wesleyan, Wayne State, and Western Michigan Universities. His former graduate students hold choral artistic director positions across the country. He has taught a wide variety of courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels, including choir, orchestra, conducting, music theory and ear training, choral literature and music history, voice, and collaborative piano.   As a tenor, Noah has sung solo roles in much of the standard oratorio and concert repertoire. He has sung with professional ensembles across the country, including Conspirare, Spire, Yale Choral Artists, Arkora, Cerulean, and the Tallis Scholars. He appears in numerous commercial recordings, including five albums released on Naxos Records. His singing has been featured on America’s Got Talent, MLB.com, and YouTube’s homepage. Also an organist, Noah has served as music director at a number of churches, and currently works in that capacity at St. Thomas’s Episcopal Church in New Haven, CT. He has given organ recitals in several countries and many states, and specializes in choral accompaniment. He recently won the nationally competitive AAGO and S. Lewis Elmer Prizes from the American Guild of Organists. He continues to collaborate with soloists and ensembles on organ, harpsichord, and piano. In his younger years he enthusiastically pursued trumpet, and played principal trumpet for several orchestras, bands and jazz ensembles, along with having the opportunity to play solo jazz trumpet for President Bill Clinton during his time in office.   Noah holds the D.M.A., M.M.A., and M.M. degrees from Yale University in choral conducting, and M.M. and B.Mus. degrees from Yale and Oberlin College in organ performance. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and two daughters.   For more details, visit www.cantatasingers.org   Publicist Laura Grant, Grant Communications 917-359-7319; Laura@grant-communications.com