Cantata Singers Perform 50th Anniversary Concert

The Ann Arbor Cantata Singers will celebrate 50 years of performances with a concert Sunday at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, 306. N. Division St. in Ann Arbor.

The concert, featuring songs from the past five decades, will reunite past and present performers. One of those alumni is retired attorney Don Kenney, who spent 18 years with the group. He and other alumni will join in singing “Alleluia” by Randall Thompson, written in 1940.

“It’s great fun and very rewarding to get back with old friends and colleagues,” Kenney said.

Thomas Hilbish, a past AACS conductor, fondly recalls a 2003 performance of the Bach Mass in B-minor.

“I had performed it quite a few times before, including a premiere in Beijing, but this one was special, as it was one of the best performances of that great work,” he said. “I thought the recording we made did the group proud.”

Dexter area resident Bob Douglas, owner of DD Llamas in Webster Township, was introduced to the group several years ago by Hilbish, who became music director when the group was relaunched a few years ago.

“I had performed with him before, and he knew me – the local music community is not large. He needed tenors, and so I joined the Cantata Singers,” said Douglas, who said he is looking forward to the anniversary concert.

An accomplished tenor who has sung with the University of Michigan Gilbert & Sullivan Society, Choral Union, and Ann Arbor Civic Theater, Douglas
enjoys performing classical pieces, especially those by Wolfgang Mozart.

A recipient of the Washtenaw County Council for the Arts “Annie Award” for excellence in the performing arts, the Ann Arbor Cantata Singers have also sung with local high school choruses, including Dexter High School, and each year provide high school scholarships for the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

“To put together an ensemble of fine singers to perform a variety of music, spanning works by composers from the early Baroque to the present – that was essentially the ‘mission’ that I, together will several friends, undertook some 50 years ago,” Rosella Duerksen, group founder said. “The response from singers in the community, among them a number of music professionals, was enormously gratifying. For me it was a wonderful opportunity and challenge, and we were off and running.”

Bradley Bloom, a faculty member at the University of Michigan's School of Music, Theatre and Dance, was music director for 20 years, from 1974 to 1994.

“A community organization that can sustain itself for 50 years and present the choral art with integrity and musical value is indeed remarkable,” he said.

Tickets are $25 reserved seating; $15 general admission for adults and $10 students/seniors; ages 18 and under are free. Tickets are available at www.a2cantatasingers.org or at the door.