Cantus Review « PC|Bluestocking

Cantus Review

Written by ctodd
January 28th, 2010

This past Tuesday at 11:00, I filed into Edmunds with the other lucky students who had managed to get a hold of tickets to the CEP. Like many students, I wasn’t thrilled about giving up valuable sleeping or homework time, but I figured that I could attempt to do those things anyway. I mean, Cantus? A men’s vocal ensemble? Yeah, like that was going to be entertaining.

Well I was wrong. Those guys are wickedawesome (yes, I had to go there and use some “Northern slang” because in the South we don’t have a word to describe how fantastic these guys were). The group is made up of nine men and is based out of the cities Minneapolis and St. Paul. The small sample of music that we were treated to, I believe just scratches the surface of their ability. By that I mean, this is one of the only CEPs in my three and half years that I wanted to go longer.

One of their first songs was called Lux Aurumque and is composed by Eric Whitacre. It was written to sound like the wind blowing through the mountains and it is beautiful. I closed my eyes and felt like I was in some new version of Fantasia. Another song, Mountain Nights, I by Zoltán Kodály and the men were transformed into a choir of angels. As dopey as that sounds, its true. These two songs were then followed by a song that can only be described as adorable. Little Potato by Malcolm Dalglish, is a song that was rearranged to be played on the toy piano. So, Cantus played it on a toy piano. If you ever wanted to see Schroeder play in real life that was your chance. Later, they played a song with only Boomwackers. (I have included a YouTube movie below for your enjoyment). The group showed that they are talented and playful, serious and slightly immature… and maybe at least one of them is a big enough Star Wars fan to play with a Boomwacker like it was a light sabre.

Check these guys out. Don’t be turned away just because they were a CEP. They are on YouTube, iTunes, and Facebook. Check out their webpage and download some music. Do it. All the cool kids are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icH7CANY4EY (Boomwackers YouTube)