Sings Christmas

Chanticleer, the brilliant male-voice ensemble based in San Francisco, officially launches its festive season with a virtual gala. Since the group was founded in 1978, its Christmas concerts and broadcasts have become an institution in the USA, while international tours and recordings have taken its name worldwide. (In case you were wondering, Chanticleer was a clarion-voiced cockerel in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, written in the 14th century.)

As Gramophone has written, "Chanticleer, it seems, can sing just about anything," and Chanticleer Sings Christmas bears that out, embracing traditional carols and gospel numbers, plainsong, European and Mexican music of the 16th and 17th centuries, and composers and arrangers of the present day.

"Christmas for Chanticleer has always been a season of song," says the ensemble's music director, William Fred Scott, "reconnecting with old friends, and thinking how best to present this timeless story to countless listeners."