Chanticleer is proud and privileged to have been the recipient of three commissions from Meet The Composer, allowing us to commission as many as seven composers — Peter Schickele, Bernard Rands, Anthony Davis, Brent Michael Davids, Paul Schoenfield, Steven Stucky, and Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez. We have given over 250 live performances of their commissioned works. Bernard Rands’ Canti d’Amor and Steven Stucky’s Cradle Songs were included on Chanticleer’s album Colors of Love, comprised primarily of newly commissioned works by American composers of the late 20th century. Colors of Love won the 42nd Annual GRAMMY® Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance (with or without Conductor), and the Contemporary A Capella Recording Award for Best Classical Album.

Chanticleer is proud to feature the commissioned works on our concerts, at home and on tour, and on our recordings. We have performed them in major cities of continental Europe, Asia, Israel, and the United States reaching tens of thousands of listeners. We have made these works part of our standard repertoire and hopefully have escorted many of them into the standard choral repertoire to be experienced by both performers and listeners for future years.

We also feature them in our educational outreach program. Perhaps one of the greatest thrills is to hear from students, in middle-school through university, that the piece that had the most impact or made the most lasting impression on them was one of the new works.

This support has been important not only to Chanticleer, but for the whole choral world. As America ’s only full-time professional vocal ensemble, we feel a duty to do all we can to encourage and insure that the choral art-form continues to thrive and develop. By commissioning and performing new works we hope to supply the choral field with new classics, and it stands to reason that we would not be as prolific in commissioning new works were it not for this support. This program had a much greater impact on us than the value of the money itself. Recognition from this program is an act of extreme support for one’s vision and dreams. It has encouraged Chanticleer to make an even stronger commitment of time and resources in seeking other avenues of funding for new works.