Chamber Singers

The UVa Chamber Singers extend an invitation to a free concert on Sunday, November 13, at 3:00 pm at St. Paul’s Memorial Church in Charlottesville. The UVa ensemble’s fall program “The Renaissance – and Slightly Beyond” features music highlighting the beauty of a cappella works from this age of polyphony. The program includes sacred works by several extraordinary composers of the 1500’s, including Palestrina, Byrd, Clemens non Papa, Victoria, and Tallis – as well as a lighter sampling of secular madrigals, and a Polish lullaby. The concert also features Allegri’s stunning “Miserere,” the piece kept secret by the Vatican until Mozart reputedly transcribed it after hearing it in the Sistine Chapel.

Founded in 2005 and led by UVa faculty conductor Michael Slon, the UVa Chamber Singers is a select ensemble drawn from the University Singers, and performs a wide variety of music for chamber choir ranging from early music to contemporary compositions. Recent performances have included Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia, the Monteverdi Mass for 4 voices, Bach’s Mass in B minor with the University Singers, Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes, standards by Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, and the Beatles, and new music by Meredith Monk (with the Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble) and Eric Whitacre. In 2010, the Chamber Singers made their first appearances at the Staunton Music Festival, including a performance with Grammy-award winning baritone Kevin McMillan. More recently, they participated in a workshop with New York City’s Bang on a Can composer Michael Gordon during that group’s UVa Arts Board Residency.

The concert takes place at St. Paul’s Memorial Church, across from the UVa Rotunda, and is free to the public. For more information, call 434.924.3052