Chanticleer offers tonic for the soul
By Richard Scheinin

San Jose Mercury News , CA
Dec 20 2004

CENTURIES OF CHRISTMAS MUSIC CELEBRATED

Going to hear Chanticleer is a ritual at this time of year. You go
to slow down, to be still, to luxuriate in the purity of the sound
of the 12-member men’s choral group from San Francisco.

Friday night’s “A Chanticleer Christmas” at Mission Santa Clara was
musical shiatsu, deep spiritual massage. From the ensemble’s entrance,
one man at a time, each holding a candle in the darkened church,
singing 15th-century plainsong from a French abbey, to its final
medley of African-American gospel and spiritual Christmas tunes,
this was a time to let out a sigh, enjoy, shake off all stress.

Quite a gift.

Despite numerous cast changes over the past year or two, Chanticleer,
under the direction of Joseph Jennings, just doesn’t falter. Its
delivery of the most complex polyphony is at once buttery smooth
and deeply felt. There were many moments in Friday’s program —
also performed last week in Petaluma, where it was recorded for
broadcast on National Public Radio — when Chanticleer sounded like
12 supplicant Beach Boys, singing the equivalent of “Help Me, God,”
instead of “Help Me, Rhonda.”

This was a seamless program, perfect for radio: “The telling of the
Christmas story through a thousand years of music,” is how alto Jesse
Antin described it at the first of two concerts at the Mission.

The 15th-century plainsong, sung by four members of the chorus,
blossomed into the simultaneous singing, by three “quartets” within the
group, of three celebratory Christmas works spanning eight centuries —
a gorgeous tangling and untangling web of voices.

Next came “Bazmutyunq,” an early 20th-century reflection on Jesus
by Komitas, the Armenian monk and musician who composed in his
country’s “true” liturgical style. His work was rooted in a drone,
with melismatic adornments hovering, then many voices circling and
interweaving; Chanticleer’s sound was a physical presence in the
still-dark church.

The lights came on for 16th-century works from Prague and then Spain,
richly contrapuntal, and a 15th-century “Nowell” from England, grittier
and chant-like. The tour continued with joyous mutterings of Estonian
Arvo Part; a long, shimmering work by the Russian Cesar Antonovich Cui;
and more glorious supplications from Britain’s Benjamin Britten.

Saved for last were carols and the gospel and spiritual numbers, which
gave soloists a chance to embellish and “preach.” Everyone resounded,
but two singers deserved special praise: Soprano Dylan Hostetter, a
new member, has a voice that poured through the church like balm all
evening, and veteran bass Eric Alatorre sang with driving precision,
buzzing like a boombox and rooting the whole ensemble.