Coffee Cantata Project THE PERFORMANCE Celebrating a Bach-filled Cantata Singers' season, the education program presents one of his most lighthearted secular pieces – the Coffee Cantata (BWV 211). Written over 250 years ago, the story is certainly still contemporary in today's coffeehouse culture! It tells the tale of a blustery father who disapproves of his daughter's coffee habit. He promises her that he will arrange no suitor for her to marry unless she gives up her beloved coffee. But in the end, she outsmarts him, and our singers celebrate the coffee craze! Any student today can relate to the father-daughter relationship presented, as well as to the fancy coffee drink culture depicted in the modern staging. Our performance features a rich blend of accomplished voices from the Cantata Singers ensemble (Angela Carr, Heather Chu, Brian Church, Benjamin Cole, and Stephen Williams), joined by three instrumentalists – keyboard, flute and cello. Bach's percolating melodies are sung in English in this 30 minute performance, and the artists remain afterwards for a conversation with the student audience. COMPANION WORKSHOPS Before each Coffee Cantata school performance, a Cantata Singers teaching artist will visit students in their classrooms for a hands-on, music-making workshop that prepares them to engage the world of J.S. Bach. Our workshops inspire students to think about the similarities and differences between the times we live in today and the musical story that Bach presents in this cantata. It also enables students to explore his music themselves and make meaningful connections between their own lives and the performance. For more information about having a Coffee Cantata performance at your school, please contact Judy Hill at jhill@cantatasingers.org COFFEE CANTATA HISTORY What inspired Bach to write a cantata about coffee? After all, we know him best as a very serious composer of church music. In fact, one of his main duties at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, Germany, was to write a sacred vocal cantata for the Lutheran service every Sunday. Bach composed hundreds of these cantatas – vocal works with instrumental accompaniment, comprised of several sections and usually organized around a theme or story. But the Coffee Cantata is something quite different! In the early 1700's, the townsfolk of Leipzig were overcome by an exotic addiction to a substance recently introduced from the New World. While much of the population was interested in this new attraction, there were still many who viewed it with suspicion and thought it dangerous to ones' health. That substance? Coffee – the new fad of the century! But Bach had another connection to the drink as well. In 1729, he assumed the direction of Leipzig 's “Collegium Musicum,” a group of student musicians who met each Friday evening at “Zimmermann's Coffee House” to give concerts. Since they were performing secular music, the church was off-limits – and the town coffee house was the performing and rehearsing venue of choice. It is almost certainly for this group of musicians that Bach wrote the Coffee Cantata, perhaps as a sort of inside joke. A charming introduction to Bach's music, this piece is definitely JSB letting his hair down and enjoying himself. It is humorous and fun, and as close as Bach comes to a writing a comic opera. He finds a way to poke fun at both coffee drinkers and their old fashioned critics. Recreating the spirit of Bach's own “Zimmermann's Coffee House,” our production will also appear at the following independent Cambridge Coffee Houses.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17th at 11:30am TUESDAY, MARCH 27th at 7:00pm TUESDAY, MAY 1 at 5:00pm The Coffee Cantata Project is supported in part by grants from the Linde Family Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Cambridge Arts Council, Chase Foundation, Parthenon Capital Foundation, Lars Foundation, Hanify & King, and an anonymous donor.
Cantata Singers Education Staff 2006-2007 Director of Education and soprano, Judith Hill, sang with Cantata Singers for two seasons while a graduate student at New England Conservatory, helping to found the “Classroom Cantatas” program in 1992. She returned to Boston in 2005, after more than a decade of performing and arts education work in New York City. Currently in her fourth season with this ensemble, she became Director of Education in 2006. Here in Boston she can also be heard singing with Cappella Clausura and with the Church of the Advent Choir. Most recent solo engagements include Lizzie in The Coffee Cantata of Bach and Lucy in Menotti's The Telephone in Buffalo, NY, soprano soloist in the Messiah with the Riverside Choir in NYC, in the zarzuelas Cabezudos y Gigantes, L'Alegria de la Huerta, and Doña Francisquita in Napa, CA and in the contemporary chamber piece Owl in Love (Jon Deak) with members of the Buffalo Philharmonic. In New York she also performed Rose Maybud in Ruddigore with the Village Light Opera and Adele in Die Fledermaus with the New York Opera Forum, was a member and soloist with the choir of Riverside Church, and was a song recitalist on the Landmark Festival Series. Before settling in Manhattan, Judith toured for two and a half seasons with the National Opera Company where her favorite roles included: Adina in L'Elisir d'Amore, Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, Musetta in La Boheme, Hero in Beatrice and Benedict, and Anne Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor. She also starred in operettas for three seasons with the Ohio Light Opera, where her portrayals included Helen in La Belle Helene, Manja in Countess Maritza, Julia Jellicoe in The Grand Duke, and Louisa Giovanni in The Song of Norway. Judith has appeared as Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance with the Atlanta Savoyards, as soloist with the North Carolina Symphony, the Raleigh Symphony, in recital on WBFO radio in Buffalo, NY, at the Tanglewood and Aspen Music Festivals, and at the Bel Canto Institute in New Paltz, NY. In addition to performing, Judith is involved in many educational pursuits. She holds an undergraduate degree from Duke University and a MM from the New England Conservatory of Music. Her teaching experience includes work with the New York Philharmonic, the Choristers of St. Bartholomew's Church, the New York Festival of Song, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and the Metropolitan Opera Guild, as well as consulting for other arts and educational institutions. She was a master teaching artist for the Lincoln Center Institute for nearly ten years, and is finishing a PhD in Urban Education at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. Education Program Manager and mezzo-soprano, Sara Wyse-Wenger (MM in Vocal Performance, New England Conservatory) is in her thirteenth season with the Cantata Singers, appears frequently as a soloist in its Chamber Series, and has coordinated the “Classroom Cantatas” program since 1997. She has performed many recitals, is alto soloist for Payson Park Church, and her professional opera roles include Nicholas in Tales of Hoffman and Orpheus in Gluck's Orpheus and Euridice. Sara directs the Joyce Kilmer Elementary School Chorus in one of Boston 's public schools in West Roxbury, a 150 voice chorus she co-founded in 1994. As a Kindermusik teacher and coordinator of the Kindermusik program of the School of Creative Arts since 1997, Sara has helped many families with children from newborn to age seven flourish in their love of music. Through her interest in connecting Seniors and families with young children, she initiated and teaches many Kindermusik classes in nursing homes and assisted living centers in the greater Boston area.
“Classroom Cantatas” Teaching Artists 2006-2007 Angela Carr, soprano, has performed with the Cantata Singers since 2004 and started working with “Classroom Cantatas” in the fall of 2006. While studying with notable teachers such as Jayne West and Thomas Jones of Boston, she earned a Masters degree from the Longy School of Music (2005) and graduated as valedictorian with a Bachelors Degree in Music Education and Vocal Performance from Eastern Nazarene College (2003). She obtained her Massachusetts Teacher Certification in Music Education in 2003 and in addition to teaching her own local private studio of voice and piano students, has taught music at Quincy College and Campus KinderHaus Pre-School in Quincy. Some of her most recent solo performances include Faure's Requiem with the Masterworks Chorale and the premiere of Joseph Ness's Sarah and Hagar at the University of Hartford. She is currently the organist/minister of music at the Fort Square Presbyterian Church in Quincy. Angela originally hails from the small town of Stewartstown, PA but has traveled throughout the world to Central America, Holland, the British Isles and Madagascar. She loves to travel and hopes someday to use her training and education to teach music overseas. Kumi Nokariya Donaghue, soprano, is in her eleventh year singing with the Cantata Singers and has been a teaching artist with “Classroom Cantatas” for the past two years. Kumi is a native of Tokyo, Japan and has voice and education degrees from Toho Conservatory of Music in Tokyo. She is a former member of the Tokyo Nikikai Opera Theatre and has worked with one of its founders, Teiichi Nakayama. She has also appeared with other organizations throughout Japan. Since relocating to United States 1991, she has performed with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and has appeared as a soloist with the Trinity Concert Singers, the Masterworks Chorale and the Nashua Symphony Orchestra and Choral Society. She has performed a number of recitals in the Greater Boston area including with the Cantata Singers' Chamber Series and the MIT Chapel recital series. She is a longtime member and soloist for the choir at St. Agatha Church (Milton, MA), and has performed at many churches throughout the Boston area. As an educator, she was a music teacher as well as a voice coach in several choral groups in Japan. She teaches voice and piano as a private instructor and is currently a music teacher at Magic Years Nursery School (Braintree, MA) and a pianist for the chorus program at Joyce Kilmer Elementary School (West Roxbury, MA). She has also served as an evaluator at Milton Young Musicians' Festival (Milton Academy). Kumi has a daughter and an American husband whom she met in Tokyo. She enjoys gardening, sewing and drawing. She teaches and volunteers at the Japanese Language School of Greater Boston (Medford, MA). A native Coloradan, soprano Bonnie Gleason relocated to Boston following Master's studies in Choral Conducting and Voice Performance at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Ms. Gleason was a frequent soloist with the choirs at the University, including performances at conventions of the American Choral Director's Association. She received a standing ovation at Beijing Concert Hall for her singing with the University Singers on their 2001 tour of China. As a conductor, her performance of Benjamin Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb was said to be the one of the most passionate and moving student recitals in the history of its conducting program. She made her singing debut in Boston in 2003 performing Bach and Fauré in a solo recital at the Swedenbourg Chapel in Harvard Square. She is enjoying her fourth season with the Cantata Singers this year, is currently performing with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and has been featured as a soloist with both choruses. This is her first year working as a teaching artist with “Classroom Cantatas.” Ms. Gleason is music director at St. Timothy's Catholic Church in Norwood and is the choral director at Arlington Catholic High School. She is also active as a freelance church soloist. The 2004 Texas All-State Choir performed her edition of a Peter Philips motet. Mezzo-soprano Catherine Hedberg has been singing with the Cantata Singers since 2001, and working as a teaching artist with “Classroom Cantatas” since 2003. She is an active performer in recital, oratorio, and chamber music, and has been heard in the major concert halls of Boston and on Boston radio station WGBH. Recent solo engagements include Bach's Cantata No. 34 with Cantata Singers in Jordan Hall, the role of Dameta in Caldara's Amarilli Vezzosa with the Musicians of the Old Post Road, a program of Bach cantatas with the Newport Baroque Orchestra, and Bach's Cantata No. 146 under the direction of Ton Koopman in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall. She has been presented in works including Mozart's Requiem and Solemn Vespers, Handel's Messiah, several Haydn masses, Duruflé's Requiem, the Brahms Neue Liebeslieder Waltzer, and Liszt's Via Crucis, with organizations such as Cantata Singers, Symphony Pro Musica, Masterworks Chorale, Lawrence Choral Arts Society, Andover Choral Society, and the Handel Society at Dartmouth College. In recital, Catherine's repertoire spans from music of the Spanish Renaissance to new music by American composers. She has a particular interest in Spanish song and has presented well-loved and lesser-known works of Iberian composers in the United States and Spain. Catherine has appeared in the Cantata Singers Chamber Series, King's Chapel Noontime Series, and the Harvard Business School Concert Series. Susan Kattwinkel Navien, soprano, graduated from the University of Lowell with a Bachelor of Music in Education and Vocal Performance, magna cum laude. Her teaching experience includes work at St. Joseph 's School, All Saints Parish, Haverhill, MA, in both general and liturgical music. She has been a teaching artist for the Cantata Singers' “Classroom Cantatas” program since 2003. Currently a student of Monique Phinney, Susan has performed with the First Congregational Church, Winchester, MA, Cantata Singers, and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston, MA Festival Choir. She has also been heard in concerts, recitals, weddings, and funerals throughout Eastern MA and Southern NH. Originally from Glen Ridge, NJ, Susan grew up in an Air Force family and lived for a time in Ankara, Turkey. She is married to an organist and is the mother of four children. Her hobbies include sewing, needlework, home improvement, reading, and working with the Girl Scouts of America. Home | About Us | Concerts | Tickets | News | Education | Recordings | Contact | Donate Now Last Update:
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