Vocal Ensemble Calmus to Perform at SBU

The vocal ensemble Calmus will perform at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 12, at St. Bonaventure University’s Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. It is the third concert of the 2010-11 Friends of Good Music season.

Founded in Germany in 1999, Calmus is an a cappella quintet that embodies the unique combination of a pure soprano voice with four male voices ranging from bass to countertenor. All are members of Leipzig’s renowned St. Thomas Church Choir School.

This program, titled “Emotions,” includes pieces ranging from sacred music of Bach to Italian madrigals by Gesualdo to arrangements of popular melodies by Sting and Freddie Mercury. Also featured is the New York premiere of Psalm 104 “Lobe den Herrn” (Praise the Lord) by Wolfram Buchenberg, a contemporary composer from Bavaria.

Calmus was the First Prize Winner of the 2009 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, and the group recently garnered first prizes at the International Competition for Vocal Ensembles in Finland and the 37th Tolosa Choral Contest in Spain. The ensemble has also participated in important music festivals such as the Bach Festival Leipzig, the International a cappella Week in Hannover, and the Schleswig-Holstein-Music Festival, where it gave a final polishing to the quintet’s sound in the Master Class of the King’s Singers.

An active concert schedule has taken Calmus across Germany, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, France, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and North and South America. Its 2010-11 United States tour includes a debut recital at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and performances at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Purdue University, the University of Iowa’s Hancher Auditorium, Chamber Music of Little Rock (Ark.), the artists series of Tallahasee, Lancaster (Calif.) Performing Arts Center and Northeastern Illinois University.

With no fewer than 10 recordings to its credit, Calmus received the 2009 Echo Klassik Award (Germany) for “Liedgut,” a disc of treasured German folksongs. The group’s latest CD, “Hausmusik,” is a collection of songs by Robert and Clara Schuman and J.S. Bach. “Christmas Carols,” its first CD of music for the holidays, has been received enthusiastically and was praised by Classics Today magazine as “... perfectly balanced ensemble singing, every note, every chord given exacting importance, delivered in the most vocally attractive, musically expressive style.”

Joseph A. LoSchiavo, executive director of the Quick Center said: “Thanks to our longstanding professional relationship with the Concert Artists Guild, we are able to present the prize winners of the Guild’s annual International Competition. These young artists are well on their way to important careers in international venues.”

This performance is supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts.

Tickets are $20 at full price, $16 for senior citizens and St. Bonaventure staff, and $5 for students. For subscriptions, single tickets and information, call The Quick Center at (716) 375-2494.

For each Friends of Good Music performance, The Quick Center will open its galleries one hour before the performance and keep them open throughout the intermission. Regular gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.


Museum admission is free and open to the public year round. For more information, visit www.sbu.edu/quickcenter.

Photo courtesy of SBU