Pre-concert talk at 7:00pm with composer Elena Ruehr
Post-concert reception free to all ticketholders

Cantata Singers’ 51st season will commence on Saturday, November 8th at 8:00pm at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall with a program featuring the World Premiere of Elena Ruehr’s Eve paired with two cantatas by J.S. Bach - his harmonically inventive cantata BWV 77, “Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, lieben” (You shall love God, your Lord) and the festive wedding cantata BWV 195(a), “Dem Gerechten muß das Licht” (The light shall ever rise again for the righteous). The season opener builds on Cantata Singers’ tradition of presenting new works for choir and ensemble alongside Classical and Baroque repertoire.

Cantata Singers has commissioned acclaimed Boston-based composer Elena Ruehr to create Eve, a new work for choir and orchestra that uses Biblical text from Genesis 3, the Fall of Man. Ruehr’s setting of this iconic biblical text interprets this event as the birth of consciousness for mankind. Eve will be Cantata Singers’ 14th commission and the first from a female composer.

About Cantata Singers

A singular desire to bring to Boston’s listeners music that isn’t being heard anywhere else has inspired Cantata Singers’ programming for 51 years. J.S. Bach’s music, from the cantatas to the B-minor Mass to the Passions, remains an essential part of Cantata Singers’ repertoire. However, the ensemble’s repertoire has expanded to include music from the 17th century to today. Cantata Singers has commissioned 14 works for choir and orchestra-including one that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music-and has presented more than fifty Boston premieres of music both old and new.

Cantata Singers has always focused on the music-be it by Bach, Verdi, Harbison, or Pärt-and its audiences do, too. Our audiences return year after year to hear fresh visions of iconic music, or an intriguing unfamiliar work that is-in fact-quite approachable. Each Cantata Singers concert is often surprising, sometimes challenging, always beautiful, and ultimately inspiring.

Open on 8 November; Saturday from 8pm