Welcome to our 2024-25 Distinguished Artist Series!
- Angélica Negrón: Wednesday November 6, 2024 at 7:30 p.m.
- Cantores In Ecclesia Vocal Ensemble: February 19, 2025 at 7:30 p.m.
Angélica Negrón
Angélica Negrón is a Puerto-Rican composer and multi-instrumentalist recognized for composing music for accordions, robotic instruments, toys, and electronics, as well as for chamber ensembles, orchestras, choirs, and films.
Puerto Rican-born composer and multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón writes music for accordions, robotic instruments, toys, and electronics as well as for chamber ensembles, orchestras, choir, and film. Her music has been described as “wistfully idiosyncratic and contemplative” (WQXR/Q2) while The New York Times noted her “capacity to surprise.” Negrón has been commissioned by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Kronos Quartet, loadbang, MATA Festival, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Sō Percussion, the American Composers Orchestra, and the New York Botanical Garden, among others. She has composed numerous film scores, including Landfall (2020) and Memories of a Penitent Heart (2016), in collaboration with filmmaker Cecilia Aldarondo. She was the recipient of the 2022 Hermitage Greenfield Prize. Upcoming premieres include works for the Seattle Symphony, LA Philharmonic, NY Philharmonic Project 19 initiative and multiple performances at Big Ears Festival 2022. Negrón continues to perform and compose for film.
Cantores In Ecclesia Vocal Ensemble
For 40 years, CIE has been dedicated to the restoration of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony to the church’s liturgy directed by Blake Applegate.
Cantores in Ecclesia is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony in liturgical context within the Latin Mass of the Catholic Church.
Comprised of both an adult and youth choir, Cantores in Ecclesia was first established in 1983. It began singing at St. Patrick's Church in 1985 through an arrangement with its pastor, Fr. Frank Knusel, and Bishop Paul Waldschmidt of the Archdiocese of Portland. The choir's first sung Mass at the historic NW Portland Church was the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, for which it sang William Byrd's Mass for Five Voices and selections from his Gradualia (1605). For the next 17 years, Cantores in Ecclesia was synonymous with St. Patrick's and the beautiful plainsong, polyphonic Masses, and motets heard each week at its Solemn Latin Vigil Mass. In September of 2002, the choir established its independence as a nonprofit organization, but its mission remained constant: to restore the rich treasury of chant and sacred polyphony to Catholic liturgy. After leaving St. Patrick's in 2002, the choir provided music for the Latin liturgy at Immaculate Heart Church for several years. From the first Sunday of Advent, 2007 to 2016, it began providing music for the parish of St. Stephen’s Church. The choir is now in residence at Holy Rosary parish in NE Portland where it currently provides music once a month and for feast days. It also regularly sings for mass at St. Agatha's Catholic Church in SE Portland.
In addition to singing liturgically, Cantores in Ecclesia has toured widely at home and abroad, with performances throughout Mexico, Spain, France, England and Italy, where it won gold medals in an international competition. The choir also presents several sacred concerts each year, has released three recordings to date, and has often been featured in the press, with articles in BBC Music Magazine, Brainstorm, Early Music America and Oregon ArtsWatch.
One of the highlights of the choir’s commitment to musical excellence is the annual William Byrd Festival held each August, which has brought guest conductors, lecturers and musicians to Portland for nearly three weeks of liturgical services, concerts, organ recitals, and lectures for the past 25 years.
But the principal service of Cantores in Ecclesia has been and will remain the task of combining music and liturgy. At its heart will always be the ancient sung prayer of Gregorian chant, surrounded and supported by the sacred music of great masters such as Palestrina, Victoria, and Byrd.
- OCP Artist Info: Cantores in Ecclesia
- Cantores in Ecclesia on Facebook
- Cantores in Ecclesia on YouTube
Our concerts are held in the Hudson Concert Hall in the Rogers Music Center, Willamette University.
Willamette University Music Department
Rogers Music Center
503-370-6255
music-info@willamette.edu