Lucy Gellman Photo
Rosen and Ashworth.
Just seconds into a self-dubbed “Frankenstein” Ciaccona for chamber vocals, Taylor Ward was getting ready to dance it out, shrugging his shoulders and easing into the beat.
Rising just slightly on her bare feet, mezzo soprano Annie Rosen joined in, entering a back-and forth of voices that ebbed and flowed through the living room, exquisite waves of sound by the time they reached the walls.
In front of them, a small, rapt audience leaned in and laughed softly, Ward’s chewy quotations and riffs on pop music delighting even the purists in the room.
Doug Perry grinned broadly as he set a melody on the vibraphone. Cellist Hannah Collins and Theorbo-tamer Arash Noori drew out a stringed foundation, spinning a silver, honeyed web beneath what would become the timbrel’s soft but persistent beat, the piano’s singsong, character-filled answer to the lyrics. On his wild clarinet, Gleb Kanasevich swayed, intoxicated by the group.
Ward.
Ward dove into a throaty section, reams of brown and red velvet unfurling to all corners of the room as he sang. There was no stopping him now.
The piece – a pithy, jovial and ultimately spellbinding exploration of what happens when DJ Earworm gets in bed with a few chamber vocalists and they all go to town – was one of several in a sneak peek of Cantata Profana’s third season, performed Tuesday night at Rosen’s parents’ lovely East Rock home.
It is their most ambitious season yet, and after the group performed for almost three hours, it wasn’t hard to see why. Pieces like Ward’s epic early modern jam (“It’s all of our favorites rolled into one,” Collins said beforehand), Gyorgy Kurtag’s Kafka Fragments and a vibraphone-infused introduction to Béla Bartók personify the group’s ever-curious spirit and drive to render seldom-performed or musically challenging works accessible.
Noori
Sound daunting? Maybe if left to any other cohort. In what Ward and Rosen attribute to having fun – a lot of fun – while singing, and Artistic Director/Conductor/Violinist Jacob Ashwoth calls “thinking of the pieces I want to be in the room with,” each work leaves listeners thoroughly engaged, a stunning, intimate sense of relatability filtering through members’ myriad interpretations of the music before them.
Are pieces like Michel Lambert’s heavily baroque “vos mepris chaque jour,” far removed from our time? Of course they are. Find Kafka’s Fragments esoteric and philosophical, while also avant-garde? As the day is long. But listen as Ward sings je mourrais de plaisir si j’étais plus heureux (“I would die of pleasure if I was happier”) with a devilish grin on his face, or watch Ashworth bring vibrancy to the fragment Verstecke sind unzählige, Rettung nur eine, aber Möglichkeiten der Rettung wieder so viele wie Verstecke. (There are countless hiding places, but only one salvation; but then again, there are as many paths to salvation as there are hiding places), and these lofty artists are suddenly not so untouchable, transformed into quirky guys you could share a glass of wine with.
Their third season is a testament to that. In addition to its series of annual concerts, the group is embarking on several new initiatives, including a series of smaller recitals that will start in November, a residency at Avaloch Farm this month, and a collaboration with Heartbeat Opera, the brainchild of Cantata Profana’s own Resident Director Ethan Heard. Their next event, a drag rendition of Purcell’s The Fairy-Queen, will be performed in Brooklyn at the end of this month.
“Just like our group is vocal chamber music, they take opera and make it much more intimate so you can get those visceral operatic emotions firsthand. It’s the idea that some of these big operas will be taken to a smaller scale. There are exciting things to come,” Pianist Daniel Schlosberg said at the event.
“We’ve turned a big corner. The idea for this group was always a collective, but it took a while for us to work together enough to settle down into that. All those parts finally came together – all these people who have done more than just play concerts, people that have been a part of everything behind it. That’s the most exciting thing … it’s a very grassroots effort and everyone’s a part of it. I love doing what these people love,” said Ashworth at the end of the evening, stepping outside into the crisp, wet air.
“This is really exciting to us. To be in a room, say Hey. This is us. This is what the group looks like now.” he added.
Cantata Profana’s first small-format recital will be in November. To find more, visit their events calendar or contact them here. You can also follow them on Facebook or Twitter.