FY15 May Artistic Council & Education Outreach Reports
Communcations – Aaron Humble
Cantus Activities Week by Week:
4/26: Tour to Iowa
5/3: Rehearsals, Meetings, Cantus Idol prep
5/10: Cantus Idol, Rehearsals, and Meetings
5/17: Virginia Arts Festival Tour
Communications Highlights:
· Continued conversation with APM on Thanksgiving with Cantus
· Starting to create documents for succession planning ahead of this summer
· Interview with Daily Iowan, coordinated interview with Chris Foss as well
· Working with RDPR on Virginia media opportunities
· Communicating with Covers guest artists for schedule, music, etc.
Press and Media
Anthem Tour Press
Iowa City
http://www.dailyiowan.com/2015/04/30/Arts/42026.html
Presenter Feedback:
Sioux City, IA
You are very welcome! It was a great concert and master class. Best wishes on your tour!
Thank You,
Noah D. Towns
University of Iowa
Aaron,
We send our thanks to you as well. The concert was great and our audience loved. And additional thanks for being so generous with your time with our student. He really appreciated the opportunity.
I hope to see you down the road.
Jacob
Artistic Operations – Paul John Rudoi
Recruitment:
- Though auditionees find a variety of facts about employment benefits and the prestige of the ensemble in audition notices and materials, they don’t get a sense of the company culture and the benefits of working in a truly transparent and collaborative organization. Now that our recruitment cycle for the 2014-2015 season is complete, we will plan some time this summer to update auditions copy to better reflect the benefits of working with Cantus.
Rehearsals:
- Cantus Covers: We’ve been working on Covers arrangements, especially over the past week. These are coming along very well, and we are close to the point where we need to include the band. We’re looking forward to joining the band at the end of May, following our tour out to Virginia!
- One-off concerts: We will perform one more “Choral Classics” concert for this season, in Virginia. After that, our one-off season will be complete! It’s always tough to find enough rehearsal time for the spring’s many one-off performances, but we were efficient and everything worked out very well!
Programming – Chris Foss
The Four Loves Program has been finalized for the 15-16 Touring Season. The last few pieces have been put into place with music starting to be ordered and arranged. We will plan to distribute music in early July for learning purposes.
The Four Loves Commissions drafts are starting to come in. Joseph Gregorio sent in an almost completed draft on May 1st. Roger Treece has sent several sketches and asked for an extension for the final draft date to June 20. Ysaye Barnwell asked for a month extension as well. David Lang has said he will deliver the final completed score on May 18th.
The Dale Warland commission/accompanying Viking Chorus collaboration has been delayed until 2015-2016 with the agreement of all parties (including St. Olaf, Dale Warland, Tom Arneson, and Cantus). Dale requested the opportunity to re-write his piece, so a new due date of July 1st for the draft and August 1st for the final draft, to be distributed to Viking and Cantus to start learning. The premiere is slated for an ACDA event in November 2015.
The Romeo and Juliet collaboration with the Guthrie continues to develop with contract negotiations with Libby, Bill, and Equity, as well as regular meetings. Our workshop schedule has been sketched out this summer, and will include about half of the total of music commissioned from Libby. Also participating will be several actors playing multiple roles, and a movement coach.
The Covers program has been finalized in final order, with music chosen for the Sing with Cantus moment. We are also including two songs from previous years to round out the show’s flow and running time: Supertition and Seven Bridges Road.
The repertoire for the Colombia tour’s concerts has just been finalized, consisting of most of the Four Loves, but with the inclusion of a set of 3 songs of Columbian origin dealing with romantic love, as well as an encore entitled Colombia Es Amor (Colombia is Love).
We have chosen a title for our Spring 2016 show dealing with the experience of being homeless: Would You Harbor Me? The title comes from a piece we have performed several times of the same name, written by Ysaye Barnwell. We are continuing to search for pieces and perspectives to round out what promises to be a challenging and uplifting spring show experience.
Education Outreach – Shahzore Shah
High School Residency
Our 2014-15 Residency program concluded with a successful, energetic concert at First Lutheran Church in Columbia Heights on Friday, April 24. The venue was great for the three choirs and nearly full of enthusiastic audience members.
We’ll meet with our 2015-16 choir directors and student leaders from each school on May 25 to solidify the residency schedule and discuss mass choir repertoire as well as student engagement opportunities.
Students from each of next year’s HSR choirs are invited to attend opening night of Covers on June 5th. Teachers will be submitting lists of up to 50 students per choir, including graduating seniors, to attend that performance!
Board Engagement Opportunity:
Attend a planning meeting for HSR! If you are particularly interested in hearing and or participating in the discussion between Cantus, teachers and student leaders, we’d love to have you. The next meeting will be Wednesday, May 25 at 6:30pm. There is typically one more meeting in August or early September. Please contact Shahzore to arrange to be there.
Alternatively, bring a high school choir director as your guest to opening night of Covers! There’s nothing like seeing students’ response to a live Cantus performance to get prospective directors hooked for this kind of collaboration.
National Outreach
We have a school performance for 8th grade choir, band and orchestra students at Northside Middle School as part of our Virginia Arts Festival tour next week.
In preparation for such a visit, schools are provided with a concert set list, sample introduction and list of FAQs. On occasion, teachers are also provided with a list of suggested activities to help draw connections between our performance and current learning standards.
Spread the word that Cantus offers a variety of educational outreach opportunities locally and around the country each year. If you know educators/organizations interested in working with us, refer them to education@cantussings.org or contact Shahzore shah@cantussings.org.
