Upcoming
December 2025: Alleluia, Behold the Star!
Celebrate the joy of the holiday season with the Cambridge Chamber Singers! We present Francis Poulenc’s varied and tuneful choral masterwork Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël, paired with Renaissance pieces with the same texts. In addition, we feature Einojuhani Rautavaara’s mystic Canticum Mariae virginis. Seasonal carols–spiritual, jazzy and traditional–round out the program. See you there!
Tickets are available here: Cambridge Chamber Singers – Events – TicketPeak
Saturday, December 6, 2025, at 8:00 PM
Lindsey Chapel at Emmanuel Church, 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA
Sunday, December 7, 2025, at 7:00 PM
Pilgrim Congregational Church, 55 Coolidge Ave, Lexington, MA
image: The Magi looking at the Star, Assumption Cathedral, Clermont-Ferrand (France) Photo: Francisco Lecaros
Past
May 2025: Aphrodite and Friends: The Many Musical Manifestations of Love
December 2024: A Glorious Sight: Four Centuries of Music by Italian Women
In addition, the Cambridge Chamber Singers is pleased to present Alleluia (The Rose), by Cole Reyes, the winner of our 2024 international composition competition.
May 2024: Rejoice in the Lamb: Benjamin Britten and His World
with Chris Porter, organist
December 2023: Resonet in Laudibus: Five Centuries of Germanic Music
In addition, we will present Phillipine composer Ily Matthew Maniano’s Creations Crescendo, the winner of the 2022 Cambridge Chamber Singers International Composition Composition.
December 2022: Ave Regina Coelorum: Hail, Queen of Heaven
Celebrate the season of light with this concert of hope, anticipation, and beauty! Our program features the stunning and rarely performed Missa Ave Regina Coelorum – the most renowned mass of the 15th century – by Guillaume Dufay. Works by Hildegard von Bingen, Sweelinck, Schütz, Rheinberger, and contemporary composer Cecilia McDowall complement the mass. Join the Cambridge Chamber Singers for our 42nd season!
The Cambridge Chamber Singers and The Boston New Music Initiative are thrilled to present a joint concert entitled Music of Speech. BNMI performs works by living composers that use the spoken word in various ways, running the gamut from pre-recorded speech to collective speech. The highlight will be the world premiere of Strange Birds by Ania Vu, winner of BNMI’s 9th Annual Commissioning Competition.
Performing together, CCS and BNMI offer a diverse set of choral works, including accompanied Monteverdi madrigals, Rheinberger’s romantic Die Nacht, Larsen’s scat Dance Set, and Jobim’s jazzy Double Rainbow. The featured work – a 2020 joint commission by the two ensembles – is On the Nature of Things, by competition winner Andrew Davis.
March 2022: Cambridge Chamber Singers’ 40th Anniversary Concerts
Enjoy CCS favorites from the past, including Victoria’s O Magnum Mysterium, Mouton’s Reges terrae, and Monteverdi’s Si ch’io vorrei morire. Savor lush English partsongs by Parry, Stanford and Finzi. Hear our featured work, the rarely performed polychoral Magnificat quinti toni by Heironymous Praetorius. Discover new a cappella works by Borishansky, Wyers, and the premiere of Fahrner’s Set Me as a Seal
Come celebrate our 40th anniversary with us!
June 2021: Sweet Sounds of Spring!
All choristers are fully vaccinated; attendees are encouraged to be vaccinated as well.
The fully vaccinated Cambridge Chamber Singers welcome the return of spring, of singing, of live concerts, and of audiences! Join us for a concert of joy and reflection. Featured works include moving Italian madrigals by Monteverdi and Rore, exciting English madrigals by Byrd and Purcell, and a selection of stunning English Romantic Songs of Farewell by Charles H. H. Parry.
Find the full program HERE: CCS_Program_Online.
December 2019: The Cambridge Chamber Singers Present – Uncertain Light
Celebrate the season of light with the Cambridge Chamber Singers, as they present music from the Renaissance, Baroque, and Romantic periods by Palestrina, Schütz, and Schumann, respectively. Meditate on Palestrina’s two versions of Ave Regina Caelorum. Glory in the great Deutsches Magnificat of Schütz, and triumph in the four two-chorus works by Schumann, including An die Sterne and Ungewisses Licht.
May 2019: Music, When Soft Voices Die: Renaissance, Romantic and Contemporary Gems
Explore with us the lingering strains of six centuries of choral music! Enjoy masterful madrigals by the great William Byrd and the incomparable Claudio Monteverdi. Savor the intimate inventions of Franck Bridge and Charles Parry. Hear the winner of the 19th Annual International Composition Competition, Beyond Nine Lakes, by Gilad Hochman, of Berlin, Germany.
December 2018: O Splendor Gloriae
The Cambridge Chamber Singers is pleased to announce their 39th year of masterful a cappella music! Celebrate the season with stunning selections from the English Renaissance, lush romantic motets, and complementary contemporary works.
This innovative program features the spectacular O Splendor Gloriae, by John Taverner, Stanford’s Beati quorum via, and God Is With Us (A Christmas Proclamation), by John Tavener (1944-2013).
May 2018: Spem in Alium: A Tribute to Hope
This concert features the magnificent, rarely performed Spem in Alium (c. 1570), Thomas Tallis’s incomparable 40-part motet. The program includes: Renaissance classics – Zefiro torno; jazz standards – All The Things You Are; Stanford’s moving The Blue Bird; and Hindemith’s charming Six Chansons. Also included is the winner of the CCS 19th Annual International Composition Competition, Here Among the Flowers, by David von Kampen of Lincoln, Nebraska.
This special concert celebrates 30 years of music under the direction of Ray Fahrner.
December 2017: A Ceremony of Carols
The Cambridge Chamber Singers is pleased to present Benjamin Britten’s celebrated A Ceremony of Carols, featuring special guest, harpist Juli Miller. The program includes Brahms’s elegant Marienlieder, and a selection of popular English carols.
September 2017: The Cambridge Chamber Singers & ATD Fourth World present: Joining Our Voices to Stop Poverty:
A Benefit Concert in Support of the 60th Anniversary of ATD Fourth World
The concert will feature spirituals, Randall Thompson’s moving Alleluia, and international selections, including the winner of the Cambridge Chamber Singers 2016 International Composition Competition.
For over 50 years, ATD Fourth World USA has been working in some of the most under-served communities in the United States to overcome the injustices of persistent poverty by learning from those who face poverty every day and by mobilizing people from all walks of life to stop poverty. With a grassroots presence in extremely under-resourced communities in 30 countries, emphasis is on the indispensable role of culture and art in overcoming poverty. In Boston we are part of an international research project with Oxford University, England, to identify the multidimensional aspects of poverty.
The Cambridge Chamber Singers and ATD Fourth World are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the International Movement ATD Fourth World and the 100th anniversary of the birth of its founder, Joseph Wresinski. Joining our Voices concerts are being held around the world to raise awareness, to mobilize the general public to act together to #StopPoverty, and to raise funds for music and cultural projects in under-served communities. For more information, visit http://www.poverty-stop.org.
All contributions will go directly towards the programs and work of ATD Fourth World USA. Visit us at 4thworldmovement.org to learn more about our work in local communities across the United States.
May 2017: Musica Erotica
Come enjoy a festival of Musica Erotica, with 500 years of playful and provocative music about erotic love. The program includes lovers entwining in the madrigals of Josquin, Gesualdo, and Cipriano de Rore; various interpretations of “dying” by Willaert and Monteverdi; and prurient Romantic and contemporary a cappella pieces. Remember Peggy Lee’s “Fever”? The Drifters’ “Under the Boardwalk”?
We are also pleased to include the winner of our 2017 International Composition Competition, “Konus Kale” (“The Medlar Garden”), by Iranian composer Hamid Mardkhanjari.
The concert is rated PG.
December 2016: Hail, Queen of Heaven: Christmas Music by Rore, Rorem, Rautavaara, and Brahms
Join the Cambridge Chamber Singers for an evening of Renaissance, Romantic, and modern Christmas music! The program commemorates Cipriano de Rore (b. 1516) and Einojuhani Rautavaara (d. 2016), featuring brilliant a cappella works of the former and sensuously mystic music of the latter. The marvelous motet by Brahms, Es ist das Heil uns kommen her, and classic Christmas carols round out the program.
May 2016: Tiffany in Song
In conjunction with the Covenant Boston Preservation Project and the Church of the Covenant, the Cambridge Chamber singers is pleased to present Tiffany in Song,
a concert to support the preservation of the greatest collection of sacred Tiffany glass in the world.
The program features music that relates directly to the themes of the windows and the life of Tiffany, including elegant Renaissance motets by Josquin and Guerrero, Schubert’s Miriam’s Song of Joy, and spiritual and gospel favorites. We are, also, proud to present the winner of our 16th Annual International Composition Competition, Canadian composer Kelly-Marie Murphy’s work Miserere.
Cambridge Chamber Singers 