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Performing Arts Series: Cantus
Johnson County Community College
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‘All is Calm’ proves power of music for peace
The Western Front, Christmas, 1914. Out of the violence comes a silence, then a song. A young German soldier steps into No Man’s Land singing Stille Nacht (Silent Night). Thus begins an extraordinary night of camaraderie, music and peace.
The nine male a capella voices of Cantus recreates this historical event in All is Calm: the Christmas Truce of 1914 at 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 11, in Yardley Hall of the Carlsen Center at Johnson County Community College. Robert Xidis, JCCC English professor, and George Thompson, chair of the regional chapter for the Western Front Association, U.S. Branch, will do a pre-concert talk at 7 p.m., giving the history of the Christmas Truce of 1914.
In this outstanding piece of musical drama, one of America’s finest professional male vocal ensembles performs new arrangements of European carols and war songs — It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, Keep the Home Fires Burning, O Holy Night, Will Ye Go to Flanders? and more. Two actors will narrate the story.
All Is Calm is a collaboration between Cantus and Theater Latte Da, both at home in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Peter Rothstein, artistic director of the Theater, spent two years researching the undeclared truce when Allied Forces and German soldiers living in miserable trenches lay down their arms, exchanged gifts and even helped bury their enemy’s dead. Narrative is taken from war documents, letters and journals.
“But it's the voices of the Cantus singers that make most of the magic in this show. Even when they're singing moldy oldies like Pack up Your Troubles (in your old kit bag, and smile, smile) or holiday staples like O Tannenbaum and Good King Wenceslas, the arrangements are sophisticated and the execution superb. Cantus' version of Silent Night blends German and English lyrics with six-part harmonies to create an almost unbearably sad coda to the events of that night.” — Mpls. St. Paul Magazine.
The dramatic story inspired new arrangements of Christmas pieces, war songs, patriotic numbers and sentimental tunes of the era by Cantus’ artistic director Erick Lichte. Burying the dead, for example, provides the background for Auld Lang Syne.
Rothstein believes that music was essential to the 1914 Christmas truce, just as it is to the retelling of the story. All Is Calm inspires a message of hope that peace, like music, can transcend nationalities.
For 14 years, Cantus has been dedicated to singing and promoting music for male voices in a variety of periods and genres including chant, Renaissance music, contemporary works, art song, folk, spirituals, world music and pop. Their sound is powerful yet intimate, their nine voices at times able to sound like one or 30.
Tickets for All is Calm are $30 and $20, available by calling the Performing Arts Series box office at 913-469-4445 or online at www.jccc.edu/TheSeries.
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