Trade Winds

GRAMMY Award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer opens its 2019-2020 Bay Area subscription season with "Trade Winds." Appropriately saluting their upcoming world travels, the twelve-man vocal ensemble will present the music of sea-faring people and tropical climates in a program that includes the U.S. premiere of a commissioned work, also entitled Trade Winds, by Chinese composer Zhou Tian. Works range from Monteverdi to Grieg, as well as a selection of traditional folk songs and sea shanties from all over the world. "Trade Winds" reflects the eclectic and far-reaching repertoire which has made Chanticleer a world-wide audience favorite for over forty years. Early music, with which the group first distinguished itself, will be represented by songs about the sea and the spheres by Monteverdi and Gesualdo. Portuguese music from the same era will be sung by Chanticleer for the first time with Filipe de Magalhaes' Mass, O Soberana Luz. A selection of Sea Shanties from the British Isles, and folk songs from China, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand will complete the program. Chanticleer's long and illustrious history of commissioning new choral work continues with the U.S. premiere of Trade Winds by Chinese composer Zhou Tian. Based on the poetry of John Masefield (Trade Winds), Zhimo Xu (Fortuitousness) and Seth Michelson (Strange How We Can Walk), this commissioned work will receive its world premiere in Kaufungen, Germany during Chanticleer's upcoming European tour (August 19 through September 18). Zhou's music has been performed throughout the world including orchestras such as the Pittsburgh Symphony and Hong Kong Philharmonic as well as such artists as Yuja Wang. His Concerto for Orchestra, commissioned and recorded by the Cincinnati Symphony, was nominated for a GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2018. Presented by Chanticleer