Cheers, that is! 😉

Tonight I will be attending my first performance of the Cantata Singers, at First Church in Cambridge, Mass. This is the second program in a season featuring the music of Heinrich Schütz. The program also features works by John Harbison and Maurice Durufle.

Join me if you can! The concert is at 8 pm, and tickets are $17 at the door.

I recently spoke with Music Director David Hoose about how this Schütz-based season came to be. Here’s a tidbit from our conversation:

Miss Music Nerd: So, why Shütz?

David Hoose: When we mark the 50th anniversary of Cantata Singers during our 2013-2014 season, we will almost inevitably have J.S. Bach as the composer of the year. In order to allow us to begin to turn our focus back towards Bach, we wanted to look at Schütz.

Schütz is probably the first composer the Cantata Singers performed other than Bach. I also have the sense that he really is the first great German composer, and of his time, one of the two greatest composers, along with Monteverdi.

It’s virtually impossible to imagine Bach without Schütz. The music comes out of similar sensibilities, although they were 100 years apart in age. And in so many ways, they’re the most important musical preachers that ever lived. Their connection to their own religious life came out in every possible way through their music. And while Cantata Singers is not a religious organization, anybody who participates in a choral organization understands that that’s what an awful lot of the music is — sacred music.

Stay tuned for MMN’s post-concert recon report, as well as more of this conversation!