Oct 14-16, 2022

Plaisirs Baroques

Dec 2-4, 2022

Christmas in the British Isles

Mar 3-5, 2023

French Impressions

May 5-7, 2023

Biber Requiem & Steffani Stabat Mater

Oct 14–16

Plaisirs Baroques

Charpentier, Mondonville, and Telemann

Friday, October 14, 2022, 8pm
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 1111 O’Farrell, San Francisco
Saturday, October 15, 2022, 8pm
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 600 Colorado, Palo Alto
Sunday, October 16, 2022, 4pm
    First Congregational Church, 2330 Durant, Berkeley

Our fall concert features three choral masterworks of the French Baroque, lushly orchestrated for strings, flutes, oboes, bassoon, trumpets, and drums as well as vocal soloists. The program includes a Te Deum by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, the grand motet Dominus Regnavit by Jean Joseph de Mondonville, and another grand motet, Deus Judicium Tuum, written by George Phillip Telemann during his eight-month Paris sojourn in 1737.

Read the program notes for this concert on our blog.

Dec 2–4

Christmas in the British Isles

Music of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland

Friday, December 2, 2022, 8pm
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 1111 O’Farrell, San Francisco
Saturday, December 3, 2022, 8pm
    All Saints’ Episcopal Church, 555 Waverley, Palo Alto
Sunday, December 4, 2022, 4pm
    St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft, Berkeley

Our popular Christmas concerts, presenting choral settings of music from around the world, are a Bay Area tradition. This year, we present holiday favorites and lesser-known gems from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, presented in intimate arrangements for choir and organ that showcase the magical sound of CBS at its holiday best. Along with traditional carols such as The Holly and the Ivy, Ding Dong! Merrily on High, and In the Bleak Midwinter, the choir will perform rarely heard works in Welsh and Gaelic. The program also features Christmas music written by celebrated English composers including Benjamin Britten, John Tavener, and John Rutter, as well as a modern carol, Come the Light, by Ann Burgess from Somerset, England, which won the BBC Radio 3 Carol Competition in 2015.

Mar 3–5

French Impressions

Fauré, Boulanger, and Badings

Friday, March 3, 2023, 8pm
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 1111 O’Farrell, San Francisco
Saturday, March 4, 2023, 8pm
    All Saints’ Episcopal Church, 555 Waverley, Palo Alto
Sunday, March 5, 2023, 4pm
    *Venue change*: First Congregational Church, 2330 Durant, Berkeley

The sumptuous sonorities of post-romantic French music are ideally suited to the voices of CBS. Our third program features the beloved Requiem of Gabriel Fauré, with soprano and baritone soloists, chamber orchestra, and organ, along with two of his other treasured choral works, Cantique de Jean Racine and Madrigal. Also on the program are the rarely performed gem Sous Bois, by Lili Boulanger, and Henk Badings’s elegantly harmonic song cycle Trois Chansons Bretons.

May 5–7

Biber Requiem & Steffani Stabat Mater

Friday, May 5, 2023, 8pm
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 1111 O’Farrell, San Francisco
Saturday, May 6, 2023, 8pm
    All Saints’ Episcopal Church, 555 Waverley, Palo Alto
Sunday, May 7, 2023, 4pm
    St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft, Berkeley

The final concert of our 51st season showcases the “sublime” (San Francisco Classical Voice) sound of CBS in two rarely performed choral gems of the High Baroque. Agostino Steffani’s 1727 Stabat Mater weaves vocal solos, duets, trios, and choral interludes into a tapestry of exquisite polyphony, charting the spiritual journey from grief to divine redemption. We will also present the richly expressive Requiem in F minor composed in 1692 by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. Scored for five-part choir and a quartet of vocal soloists, accompanied by strings and organ, this work has been recognized as one of the most impressive requiem settings of the 17th century.