LEXINGTON,
Ky.—The Grammy Award-winning
male chorus Chanticleer will perform a concert in Transylvania’s
Haggin Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 14, as part of the Dorothy J.
and Fred K. Smith Endowed Concert series.
Chanticleer has developed a remarkable reputation over its
30-year history for its vivid interpretations of vocal literature, including
Renaissance, classical, jazz, gospel, sacred chant, Christmas and venturesome
new music. 
With its seamless blend of 12 male voices, ranging from countertenor
to bass, Chanticleer has earned international renown as “an orchestra of
voices” and New Yorker magazine called the group “the world’s reigning male
chorus.”
The performance at Transylvania,
Wondrous Free, is an appreciation of the 250th anniversary of the earliest
surviving American secular composition, “My Days Have Been So Wondrous Free,”
by Francis Hopkinson, a friend of George Washington and a signer of the
Declaration of Independence. The program demonstrates the diversity of song in America.
Based in San
Francisco, Chanticleer was name 2008 Ensemble of the Year
by Musical America and was recently inducted into the American Classical Music
Hall of Fame. The ensemble has 22 recordings to its credit, including Colors of
Love, which won the Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance and the
Contemporary A Capella Recording Award for Best Classical Album. The most recent release, Magnificat, a disc
of early music devoted to the Virgin Mary, climbed to the top four on
Billboard’s Classical Chart. In 2008-09,
the ensemble will perform over 100 concerts across the U.S and in France,
Germany, Poland,
Latvia, Tokyo
and Paris.
Free tickets, while they last, are available to the public
at Transylvania’s William
T. Young
Campus Center
(corner of Broadway and Fourth streets) Monday-Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 10
p.m., and Saturday from noon to 7 p.m.
For more information, contact the public relations office at (859)
233-8120.