Our post-COVID return to the beautiful Holy Trinity Church.
Previous events
Join Cantamus for an evening of seasonal choral music, readings and festivities. Featuring James Whitbourn’s Missa Carolae. Bar serving drinks and mince pies open from 6.30pm.
Cantamus Gala Concert: 20 years with Mike Daniels
Cantamus celebrates 20 years with director Mike Daniels, in an ambitious programme of 19th century pieces including Haydn’s glorious last mass and the exquisite Alto Rhapsody with soloist Marie Elliott, men’s chorus and orchestra. Peter Kirk, choir alumnus and successful operatic tenor, returns to sing solo.
Michael Daniels musical director Marie Elliott alto Peter Kirk tenor Cantamus Chamber Choir Men with Horns Cantamus Chamber Orchestra
HAYDN Te Deum in C SCHUBERT Gesang der geister über den Wassern Op 167 D714 BRAHMS Alto Rhapsody Op 53 HAYDN Harmoniemesse Hob XXII:14
Charity Concert in aid of Dorothy House
Save the Date ...
More details to follow.
Conductor - Mike Daniels Organ - Steven Hollas
Dvorak - Mass in D Lauridsen - Les Chansons de Roses Gibbons - The Silver Swan Trefoil piano trio
Orland Gibbons' stunning madrigal The Silver Swan inspired the title for Cantamus' Spring concert with choral music based on a theme of birds and flowers. And a treat is in store with a piano trio performed by Trefoil : Steven Hollas - piano, Moira Alabaster - violin and Xander Baker - cello. Join us for a pre-concert drink in our pop up bar, open from 6.30pm.
Soulful Messiah director returns with a swinging family feast
Mike Daniels cooks up a sumptuous programme of Duke Ellington's legendary Sacred Concert, showcasing GBH Bing Band, featuring international jazz vocalist Tina May and the massed voices of local choirs.
Powerful swing, stunning jazz vocals, soulful choral singing and a show-stopping tap dance combine in this Sunday afternoon treat.
A magical journey celebrating winter and Christmas with carols and seasonal readings.
Music including Byrd, Victoria, Mendelssohn, Bob Chilcott, John Rutter and Morten Lauridsen in the fabulous acoustic of Holy Trinity Church.
Licensed bar and mince pies available from 6.30pm
Cantamus Chamber Choir Conductor - Mike Daniels Organise - Steven Hollas
English Touring Opera bring their production of Bach's masterpiece, St Matthew Passion, to Wiltshire Music Centre, concluding a 3-year cycle of Bach's works.
Featuring a cast of incredible rising opera stars with Cantamus Chamber Choir providing the chorus. Conductor - Jonathan Peter Kenny Old Street Band
Tickets will be on sale from Summer
Cantamus will be singing as part of the Soul Celebration Community Choir in this incredible contemporary reinterpretation of Handel’s Messiah, inspired by the spectacular 1992 album Handel's Messiah: A Soulful Celebration.
Directed by Mike Daniels With Black Voices, Town Hall Gospel Choir, Veritas Orchestra and the Soul Celebration Community Choir
Sunday 17 June 5pm & 8pm Wiltshire Music Centre
Cantamus will be singing as part of the Soul Celebration Community Choir in this incredible contemporary reinterpretation of Handel’s Messiah, inspired by the spectacular 1992 album Handel's Messiah: A Soulful Celebration.
Directed by Mike Daniels With Black Voices, Town Hall Gospel Choir, Veritas Orchestra and the Soul Celebration Community Choir
Sunday 17 June 5pm & 8pm Wiltshire Music Centre
Spring concert featuring Faure's Requiem and works by Paul Mealor, Villette and Dutch composer Sweelinck.
Now that's what I call a merry jazzy Christmas!
Quite simply, Christmas wouldn't be the same without this concert! Join GBH and Cantamus for an irresistible stocking-full of seasonal delights including Silent Night and a suite of jazz carol arrangements by Matt Finch. With other familiar festive delights, this winning combination brings you a merry jazzy Christmas feast.
A GBH and Cantamus Chamber Choir production
Kid-a-Quid: Up to two Under-18s can go for £1 with every full-price ticket purchased. Offer available via our Box Office (01225 860 100)
MENDELSSOHN Christe, du lamm Gotte, Jesu Meine freude GRIEG Holberg Suite Op 40 OLA GJEILO Sunrise mass
Mike Daniels conductor Musica Cordiale string orchestra
Norwegian born Ola Gjeilo's lush and lyrical Sunrise Mass takes us on a metaphysical journey. This programme for Remembrance Sunday also features Grieg's Holberg suite for strings and Mendelssohn's beautifully crafted choral cantatas.
A Cantamus Chamber Choir promotion
Our first concert in the newly-renovated Holy Trinity Church will feature a sumptuous selection of music on a celestial theme. Featuring work by Eric Whitacre, Monteverdi and Byrd. Tickets available from Wiltshire Music Centre 01225 860100 or online.
Cantamus Chamber Choir present a Christmas celebration of carols and readings, old and new with the Bristol Brass Consort. The concert will be in support of Breakthrough Trowbridge.
Tickets: £8 / £4 under 18s Tickets sold via the Wiltshire Music Centre. Click the link below to buy online or call the box office on 01225 860100. A limited number of tickets will be available on the door.
Cantamus join forces with the ETO for the second time (first collaboration was in 2014 to perform the Bach Cantatas). This October sees Jonathan Peter Kenny conduct the choir singing the St John Passion accompanied by the Old Street Band. For more information on the project visit http://englishtouringopera.org.uk/productions/st-john-passion
A community choral piece by Alexander L’Estrange, inspired by royal music through the ages and the works of G.F. Handel. The piece was commissioned by The Hanover Band to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, June 2013.
Cantamus will perform with the St Laurence School's choir and chamber orchestra. There are two performances, at 6.30pm and 7.30pm.
For their second trip abroad, Cantamus will be enjoying the sights and sounds of Ljubljana, beautifully set in the Julian Alps.
Cantamus Chamber Choir's annual Spring concert in Winsley celebrating some of the masters in literature and music. With organist Steven Hollas.
Tickets: £10 / £5 - Includes complimentary refreshments
Cantamus return with the GBH Big Band for another Christmas spectacular. Featuring all the classic festive hits as well as some stunning carol arrangements.
Concert Reviews
What Sweeter Music, December 2018
I know full well that Cantamus is a very good choir, but having heard you last night from the other side, I now appreciate just how VERY good it is.
A stunning sound, with really tight, well-disciplined ensemble singing, much dynamic contrast - it was a terrific performance of a challenging, varied programme and, appropriately, extremely well-received by the audience.
BERNARD WIGHT
St John Passion with the English Touring Opera, October 2016
English Touring Opera’s latest presentation is Bach’s St John Passion, but their approach is not operatic in the sense of staging the work with the trappings of costume and props. Neither is it touring in the conventional way of a production doing the rounds. Rather, ETO’s soloists and regular accompanists, the Old Street Band, are working at each venue with choruses from within that community, in a natural extension of the company’s outreach and education programme.
The impact of the opening chorus Herr, unser Herrscher, delivered by the joint forces of the Cantamus Chamber Choir, the Wiltshire Music Centre Chorus and choristers from St Laurence School with a considerable body of sound, was testimony enough to a worthy endeavour.
ETO’s most imaginative and radical intervention has been commissioning new English translations of the words of the Bach chorales, each from a different writer and embracing a wide range of beliefs. It underlines very strongly a basic principle of Bach’s structuring of the passion, where the communal voices of the Leipzig community would have joined in the periodic choral commentary and corporate affirmation. Thus John McCarthy’s experience as a hostage in Beirut brings a particular force to the chorale that focuses on Christ’s capture, and the vehemence with which the voices articulated Giles Fraser’s words “Drenched in spit and mockery” adds a vivid contemporary resonance.
RIAN EVANS - THE GUARDIAN
Bach Advent Cantatas with the English Touring Opera, October 2014
So many elements combined to make this one of the most divine enterprises of English Touring Opera’s outstanding season.
And what an incredible mixture of talents it was, from the ebullient conducting of the highly disciplined Cantamus Chamber Choir by Jonathan Peter Kenny, through four outstanding soloists, to The Old Street Band playing period instruments it was truly an evening to remember.
Kenny’s crafting of Bach’s chorales, seemingly almost woven by his hands, brought out the intrinsic sinews of heavenly harmony. Baritone Grant Doyle’s singing of the famous aria with only pizzicato accompaniment was surreal, and underpinning much of the solo work was the sympathetic continuo work of cellist Kinga Gaborjani.
Cantamus director of music, Michael Daniels played the trumpet in Cantata BWV 147 with his usual aplomb, and not one split note from his Bach trumpet, a most difficult instrument.
As much as anything, it was the human touch that gave the performance another dimension: the cameo of oboist Leo Duarte telling the story of his prized instruments and, joy of joys, the audience practising and eventually singing – in English, of course – the choral movement Jesu, joy of man’s desiring.
REG BURNARD - WILTSHIRE TIMES
Petite Messe Solenelle, November 2013
It's never been my luck previously to review Cantamus, a compact chamber choir under the hand of Mike Daniels, a jovial musician of diverse genres.
Truly my misfortune, for in this concert of Rossini’s “poor little mass... the final sin of my old age” (the composer’s words) there was so much of which they can be mightily proud.
Daniels worked them hard: They didn’t just sing the notes; they poured their hearts into a performance that captured the operatic opulence of a work that is almost a caricature. They are well schooled and their discipline is admirable. How refreshing, these days, to see 30-odd singers able to sit and stand without shuffling, fidgeting and flapping about. That is so important.
Their tone held through a lot of singing, their attack was incisive and their counterpoint un-muddied: but, like most choirs these days, they do need more basses for those that they have sounded, accurate as they may be, at times like a thin red line.
This mass needs piano and harmonium and Stephen Cooke (harmonium) and the redoubtable, unflappable Steven Hollas, on piano, laid a perfectly balanced and sure bedrock.
The soloists, Cheryl Enever (soprano), Jeanette Ager (mezzo), Paul Badley (tenor) and Colin Campbell (bass), all added the icing on an early Christmas treat – surely a tasty aperitif for the choir’s next offering, carols, Christmas music, readings (and mulled wine) at Christ Church, Worton, on December 18.
REG BURNARD