Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, a youth chorus from the Bay Area won a gold medal and a silver diploma at the European Choir Games in Gothenburg, Sweden, triumphing among 6,300 singers from 47 countries.
Now, Cantabile Youth Singers of Silicon Valley is celebrating its 30th anniversary. The co-ed choral program was founded in 1994 by music educator Signe Boyer and since 2004 has been under the artistic leadership of Elena Sharkova.
“Cantabile has provided music and performance education to hundreds of children between the ages of 4 and 18,” says Sharkova. “Many have gone on to attend prestigious colleges and universities — many with music as a primary area of focus [but all] with a lifelong appreciation and capacity for making music.”
Sharkova explains that a certain pedagogy is key to the program’s success. “Something that makes Cantabile unique is the importance of movement and mindfulness in our curriculum. I’ve studied yoga and qigong and use Dalcroze technique in every rehearsal as well.
“There are no chairs in our rehearsal rooms. The singers move around the space learning songs not only vocally but also through gesture and whole-body movement.”
In recent years, Cantabile has performed at the American Choral Directors Association conference in Kansas City and gone on 10 international concert tours, including solo performances at the Berliner Philharmonie, the Vatican, Notre-Dame de Paris, and the 11th World Symposium on Choral Music in Barcelona.
Isaac Alter, an alumnus from Cantabile’s class of 2012, attended Harvard University and then spent four years as a pianist and conductor for Broadway musicals. He is now a third-year medical student at Columbia University. He says of his Cantabile experience:
“It was a large part of my musical foundation, which carried me into my Broadway career. My experience in ensemble singing and vocal technique allowed me to better coach actors and singers that I worked with, and Elena’s vibrant conducting style was always an inspiration to me.”
First on Cantabile’s busy upcoming schedule is the annual gala fundraiser, titled “Beyond the Horizon” this year and scheduled for March 29 at Los Altos Community Center. The evening will have a catered dinner, live and silent auctions, music from a professional jazz trio, and performances from Cantabile’s choirs.
The organization says that event “aims to raise $75,000 to support Cantabile’s scholarship and outreach programs, which ensures students’ participation in Cantabile, regardless of their financial situation.”
Most youth choruses and orchestras charge tuition, which can be quite pricey, especially when factoring in overseas travel for international tours. Cantabile, while not tuition-free, does provide some scholarships, said to total $50,000 per year, which this month’s gala intends to raise (and then some).
Next, on May 17, it will be Cantabile’s annual All-Choir Concert at the First United Methodist Church of Palo Alto, the organization’s 180 singers performing music that’s been previously commissioned by the program.
Cantabile’s most important performance of the year will be its 30th anniversary concert on June 8 at Stanford’s Bing Concert Hall, which will be presented by Stanford Live. The program will feature the world premiere of We Are the Garden, a Cantabile commission from composer Jocelyn Hagen. Also on the bill will be works by Eric Whitacre and Sergei Rachmaninoff and a couple of previous commissions, “Shine” by Will Todd and “From the Window of Despair” by Eric Tuan.
