Ragazzi Celebrates Power Of Song With Concert CANTATE, March 26

This Spring, Ragazzi Boys Chorus will present Cantate!, a jubilant concert celebrating the joy of singing. Featuring singers from Ragazzi's Young Men's Ensemble, Concert Group, and Choral Scholars, this concert will include upbeat anthems of rejoicing and contemplative melodies of perseverance.

Led by Artistic and Executive Director Kent Jue, Cantate! will perform at 2pm PST Saturday, March 26, 2022 at Mission Santa Clara de Asís in Santa Clara. For tickets ($20-$40) and more information the public may visit Ragazzi.org or call (650) 362-4425.

Cantate! will include a wide variety of songs that express the myriad powers of music. Among the works offered by Ragazzi's Concert Group (CG) and Choral Scholars (CS) are Robert Lowry's lively and soaring How Can I Keep From Singing, arranged by Sarah Quartel; the vibrant Cantate Domino by Giovanni F. Anerio, arranged by Jim Leininger; Anton Bruckner's profound motet Locus Iste; and Pepper Choplin's glorious a cappella Reap What You Sow. CG and CS will also perform The Gift to Sing, featuring text by James Weldon Johnson and arrangement by Marianne Forman, a piece about singing through adversity that received an Honorable Mention in the 2020 King's Singers New Music Prize. CG will also present Antonio Vivaldi's stunning Laudamus Te from "Gloria" and John Rutter's serene and exquisite I Will Sing with the Spirit.

During this exuberant performance, Young Men's Ensemble (YME) will perform In Meeting We Are Blessed, a peaceful song of friendship and unity with music by Troy D. Robertson and text by R. Gatsnahos and John Donne. YME will also share Ola Gjeilo's stirring a cappella Ubi Caritas; Stephen Foster's Hard Times, a contemplative song about perseverance arranged by Nick Johnson with rustic charm; and Tim Osiek's flowing arrangement of the traditional spiritual Like a River in my Soul. CG will join YME to sing Kevin Memley's resplendent Ave Maria.

Peninsula-based Ragazzi Boys Chorus is one of the San Francisco Bay Area's premiere music and performance organizations for boys. Ragazzi has returned to in-person rehearsals and performances. The award-winning chorus kept busy during the past two years with virtual and in-person streaming rehearsals and performances, utilizing groundbreaking remote music-making technology from JackTrip Labs. During the 2019-2020 school year, more than 250 boys from over 100 schools in 30+ Bay Area communities participated in the program. Ragazzi means "boys" in Italian and is the term used in opera to refer to children's voices. Ragazzi has performed with the San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Symphony, Opera San Jose, West Bay Opera, Symphony Silicon Valley, Masterworks Chorale, and the Stanford University Symphonic Chorus among others. The group has toured throughout the United States and internationally. Ragazzi was honored for its contribution to the San Francisco Symphony's triple Grammy Award-winning recording of Stravinsky's Perséphone, and has five CDs available: A Holiday Collection, Canciones de Alabanza, Magnificat: My Spirit Rejoices, Splendors of the Italian Baroque, and I Dream A World.

For more information visit Ragazzi.org

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