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Songs of Psalms: Cor Cantiamo to release new CD

January 28, 2016

“Psallite” CD coverCor Cantiamo, a professional choir in residence at NIU conducted by School of Music professor Eric Johnson, will release its second recording Friday, March 11.

“Psallite,” co-produced with the SDG Music Foundation (previously Soli Deo Gloria) and linked to its SDG Psalms Project, offers a feast of wonderful singing that embodies the penitential, celebratory and jubliant quality of King David’s Psalm texts.

The album from Divine Art Recordings Group contains choral music based on Psalms from the 16th century to the modern day, with many new compositions commissioned for this album by composers from several countries around the world.

Listeners also will enjoy settings of traditional African-American spirituals.

“It is a great pleasure to record the compositions of the Psalms Project. This body of repertoire encompasses the full range of the sacred journey found in the Psalm texts,” Johnson says.

“From intensely personal and penitential settings to grand, sweeping, celebratory pageantry, these new compositions both honor the traditions of the past and create new sound worlds in which contemporary audiences can experience the divine,” he adds. “The extreme diversity of composers and compositional styles represented in these works creates a wonderful tapestry of new musical ideas created by the leading composers of our era.”

Cor Cantiamo was founded in the spring of 2009 with the mission to perform and promote contemporary choral music and foster new composers for the art form. Since then, the choir has emerged as an energetic and accomplished vocal ensemble, receiving accolades for its performances.