About Cantata Singers

Mission

Cantata Singers illuminates our shared humanity through choral music.

At Cantata Singers, we raise our voices together in song, bringing artistry to an enduring tradition that has long cultivated relationships, shaped culture, and fostered mutual understanding.

Through music making and community building, we create opportunities for people of all ages, cultures, and identities to engage with others in ways that uplift, inspire, and help them feel that their stories are being heard.

Choral music offers the unique opportunity for musicians and audiences to explore together what it means to be human. Our programming honors the diverse perspectives and experiences that comprise our world, acknowledging that when we better understand our shared humanity, we develop deeper connections and amplify what unites us.

Music Director Noah Horn

Noah Horn, whose work has been praised as “superb” (The New York Times), “well-prepared and joyful” (Detroit Free Press), “excellent,” and “fluent and fresh” (Opera News), began his role as Music Director of Cantata Singers in 2022. He comes to the ensemble having directed choirs and orchestras at the professional, collegiate, and community levels. He has worked with ensembles in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Turkey, Greece, Canada, and the Philippines.

As a tenor, Noah has sung solo roles in much of the standard oratorio and concert repertoire. His singing has been featured on America’s Got Talent, MLB.com, and YouTube’s homepage. Also an organist, Noah has served as music director at a number of churches, and currently works in that capacity at St. Thomas’s Episcopal Church in New Haven, CT. He recently won the nationally competitive AAGO and S. Lewis Elmer Prizes from the American Guild of Organists. In his younger years he enthusiastically pursued trumpet, and played principal trumpet for several orchestras, bands, and jazz ensembles, along with having the opportunity to play solo jazz trumpet for President Bill Clinton during his time in office.

Noah holds the D.M.A., M.M.A., and M.M. degrees from Yale University in choral conducting, and the M.M. and B.Mus. degrees from Yale and Oberlin College in organ performance. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and three children.

Learn More About Noah Horn

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion + Access

Cantata Singers is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and access across all aspects of the organization. We recognize that barriers and biases prevent diverse populations from participating freely in all aspects of Cantata Singers. Through our DEIA Committee, Cantata Singers works to identify, influence, and act on strategic opportunities to make the organization even more welcoming and accessible to musicians, audience members, educational partners, donors, staff members, and communities of diverse experiences.

Our History

A vibrant, cultural mainstay in Boston and the surrounding areas, Cantata Singers is a musical destination, a place where art, community, and history intersect. A uniquely modern ensemble with deep roots in the past, built on a foundation of innovation and versatility, Cantata Singers promotes the rich heritage of choral music inspired by the musical genius of Johann Sebastian Bach alongside more modern works.

Today, Cantata Singers offers fresh, inspiring interpretations of iconic music interspersed with intriguing, unfamiliar yet accessible works, including those by female composers and composers of color. Cantata Singers’s pioneering spirit can be seen in its juxtapositioning of well-known, rarely performed and new works. Committed to adding to the choral canon, to date Cantata Singers has commissioned 16 works by some of the 20th and 21st centuries’ distinguished composers. It has presented more than fifty Boston premieres of both old and new music.

Bach’s music, from the cantatas to the passions, remains an essential part of Cantata Singers’ repertoire, even as the ensemble’s repertoire has expanded. Commissions include:

John Harbison (The Flight Into Egypt – 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Music, But Mary Stood, and The Supper at Emmaus),
Peter Child (Estrella and Lamentations)
Donald Sur (Slavery Documents)
Andrew Imbrie (Adam)
Andy Vores (World Wheel and Natural Selection)
T.J. Anderson (Slavery Documents 2)
James Primosch’s (Matin)
Lior Navok’s (Slavery Documents 3)
Yehudi Wyner (Give Thanks for All Things)
Stephen Harke (Precepts)
Elena Ruehr (Eve)
Brandon Waddles (He’s Got the Whole World in His Hand)
Maurice Draughn (On This Wondrous Sea)

The organization’s commitment and dedication to challenging programming, including the commissioning of new works has been acknowledged with an ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music.

1964

1970s

Co-founded by a group of friends, colleagues, and classmates, Boston, Massachusetts-based Cantata Singers was created with the goal of exploring and performing music not heard anywhere else by the Boston community and surrounding area; specifically, the cantatas/choral canon of Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

Cantata Singers cemented its position as an innovative outlier in the field when it expanded its repertoire to include earlier music by other composers as well as works by modern composers. The organization also began to record commercial albums, preserving and sharing music of all times, from Bach’s cantatas to new works.

1982

Cantata Singers entered a second era of growth and exploration, redefining the choral-orchestral canon, presenting treasured icons alongside both new music and historic gems that might otherwise be lost. The organization has recorded works of Bach, Schütz, Schein, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky, as well as music of the American composers Irving Fine, Seymour Shifrin, Peter Child, Charles Fussell and John Harbison.

As a leader in community engagement in the choral world, Cantata Singers incorporates digital and virtual work into its programming, enabling greater access to their music.

1994

Cantata Singers launched Classroom Cantatas, an education initiative in Boston’s underserved schools that marries music-making and the academic core curriculum to help children find their creative voices. Teaching Artists—performers from Cantata Singers’ acclaimed ensemble—work directly with elementary-school students, guiding them to compose and perform original songs about subjects they are studying in class. Since its inception, Classroom Cantatas has helped develop the creative potential of thousands of young people in Boston.

1995

Cantata Singers was awarded the ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music. The award recognizes choruses that demonstrate a commitment to fostering and promoting new music.

2000s

Cantata Singers entered a new era of musical artistry with commissioned works by Andy Vores, T.J. Anderson, James Primosch, John Harbison (Four Psalms), and Lior Navok, performed at NEC’s Jordan Hall and the legendary Boston Symphony Hall. Festival appearances included the Ditson Festival of Contemporary Music. The chorus also focused on individual composers during several seasons, including Kurt Weill, Benjamin Britten, Heinrich Schutz, and Ralph Vaughn Williams. The organization continued its preservation and accessibility of music with the release of performance recordings on CD, including the still-available Harbison: Four Songs.

2010s

Cantata Singers continued to commission composers such as Elena Ruehr, whose work Eve received its world premiere during the first concert of the 2014-15 season, and Peter Child, who had Lamentations premiered at Jordan Hall in 2018. There was also an appearance at the American Guild of Organists Convention and a complete performance of John Harbison’s Sacred Trilogy: The Flight Into Egypt, But Mary Stood, and The Supper at Emmaus.