Chanticleer/Photo: Stephen K. Mack

Founded in 1978, Chanticleer, the San Francisco-based Grammy Award-winning all-male a cappella vocal ensemble, is named after the clear-singing rooster in Chauncer’s “Canterbury Tales.” Its annual Chicago pilgrimage at Christmastime begins in candlelight procession, spanning medieval chant and Renaissance polyphony to its own swinging arrangements of jazz and spirituals, along with contemporary compositions and carols. The group has a new Christmas album this year, “Joy to the World,” its debut on the Delos label.

“‘A Chanticleer Christmas’ is a brand that we have perpetuated for the past forty-eight years,” says music director Tim Keeler. “To have the opportunity to capture our current group of twelve singers on a new album is really thrilling. We have a couple of new Christmas commissions and arrangements that we were really excited to record. The group has changed a lot over that time, the country has changed a lot, the world has changed a lot over that time. And each version of Chanticleer has a new thing to say. It comes across clearly in Christmas, a tradition that goes back centuries. ‘A Chanticleer Christmas’ goes back decades.

“A constant of our Christmas concert is the ‘Ave Maria’ by twentieth-century German composer Franz Biebl, which we helped bring to prominence. It’s a piece we have sung at every Christmas concert since the early nineties. We do it usually about halfway through, right after intermission. I always joke that it’s kind of like our ‘Hallelujah Chorus.’ A lot of people say they come for the Biebl and it’s like, ‘Okay, but you’ve got to stay. There’s a lot more to the concert, too!’ It’s one of these pieces of tradition that is always in our Christmas concert and we love singing it. It’s a beautiful piece.

“But what is exciting for us and for a lot of other people is what we add around the ‘Ave Maria.’ And so it seemed the right time to do a new Christmas album because we have so many new works since I’ve come on as music director six years ago—works we are really excited to share with people, that we’ve featured in Christmas concerts over that time. It was nice to collect them all into one recording.”

Plus, the title track “Joy to the World” and other standard carols are given new arrangements.

“They’re going to be familiar to everybody, but they have a new Chanticleer take on them. An aesthetic of the Chanticleer sound is lush harmonies, twelve-voice chords on occasion, everybody leaning in and singing together. It’s a chance as a listener to have a fresh look at words that maybe you’ve heard a thousand times so that they almost lose meaning after a while. If you hear them set in a new way with new harmony or with a new singer, sometimes you can uncover something that maybe was there all along, but you missed before. You have a fresh perspective on it.

“There’s one part in ‘Joy to the World,’ for instance—that was arranged by our countertenor Adam Brett Ward—where he sets this melody in a minor key which comes out of nowhere and you’re like, ‘Whoa, what’s going on here?’ It makes you feel this Christmas nostalgia that may be missing from just a regular version, where you sort of sing it without even thinking about the text.

“We have an arrangement of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ done by our bass-baritone, Jared Graveley. For anybody familiar with the English choral tradition, they start every Lessons and Carols service at King’s College each year with ‘Once in Royal David’s City,’ usually with a boy soprano singing the first verse. We pay homage to that with our countertenor Logan Shields singing the soprano solo before it moves into something much more intense. And Jared Graveley brings his vocal jazz background into the third verse and makes it feel like the heavens are opening up and this divine light is coming down in a very intense way instead of just a perfunctory carol. It’s a pretty thrilling take.”

Two new pieces from the album will be featured live at Chanticleer’s Symphony Center appearance as well.

“Two years ago, we sang a piece called ‘In Winter’s House’ by the British composer Joanna Marsh. That’s the piece that she originally wrote for the vocal ensemble Tenebrae in the year 2019. We loved it. It became one of our favorite pieces to sing.

“Last year, we decided that we liked it so much that we would ask her to write another piece to go along with it, or even to complement it. This became a co-commission with another vocal group, based in Stockholm, called Zero8. They also had performed ‘In Winter’s House’ in previous years, also loved it and also wanted a companion piece to go with it.

“And so we co-commissioned Joanna Marsh and she’s now written two other pieces that go with ‘In Winter’s House.’ The first is called ‘Hands and the Hour’ and the second is ‘Arrival at the Lantern Festival’—altogether, those three pieces create a new song cycle that she’s called ‘Winter’s Garland.’ And they’re not only brand new pieces of music, but Joanna also commissioned brand new poetry to go along with these by British poet Jane Draycott, who wrote the text for all three of these pieces.

“They’re special pieces for many reasons, but one is that the text is secular yet very magical, with an almost spiritual take on this feeling of wintertime and what it’s like.

“The first piece, ‘Hands and the Hour,’ is about twilight at this time of year between darkness and light, which is so familiar to anyone who has lived through winter. I’m thinking about my travel home tonight—it’s going to be right as the sun’s going down. The way she captures that in that first piece is just so special.

“The second piece, ‘Arrival at the Lantern Festival,’ I was just talking about in rehearsal—I said, ‘It’s like going to the Christmas market in Chicago,’ which I love to do whenever we come to Chicago at this time of year. It’s about this childlike excitement about the people around and the joy of family and friends and laughter. And it’s cold, so you’ve got to bundle up and be close and all of the excitement. One of the lines is this child who asks, ‘Will there be feasting?’ and ‘Will there be music?’ The answer is, ‘Yes! Yes!’

“And then the final piece, ‘In Winter’s House,’ is this stunning take on the stillness of wintertime and how one flame can capture the hope and joy of other temperatures or other things to come. Paired with Joanna’s writing and her harmony, which is so lush and ever flowing, it just always keeps building. I’m super excited about these pieces and I’m really excited that we’ve recorded them and that we get to tour them around this year.

“But the album is not just new commissions and new arrangements of carols. Chanticleer, as you know, made our name when we first started as an early music group. And so we also stick to that on the album and have recorded a couple of Palestrina motets and some Morales and Praetorius. The other part of recording a new album is not only to highlight new works, which I think are amazing, but also to highlight the way the group sounds at the moment. And I’m very proud of how the ensemble sounds and really excited that we were able to capture this version of twelve singers in Chanticleer on this new Christmas album.”

Chanticleer/Photo: Joel Simon

The opening of “A Chanticleer Christmas” live has remained the same over the decades.

“We start in darkness with candles, walking out onto the stage. Not processing down the aisle as we used to at Fourth Presbyterian Church but still setting the same mood with Gregorian chant at the opening and early music to launch things off. It’s not the same repertoire every year, but the mood is the same. I joke that it’s a bit like spooky Christmas.

“One of the motets we’re singing this year, which is also on the album, is a Palestrina motet, ‘O Magnum Mysterium,’ which is, ‘Oh, Great Mystery.’ And to think about it not like, ‘Wow, it’s so cool,’ but as this awesome wonder of God made flesh that is such a great mystery. That’s a little spookier than just like, ‘Yay, it’s Christmas,’ you know? So we start off in that world with candles.

“Everything on the album is also on the live concert, which is pretty exciting. So people can come hear us live and then figure out their favorite song and then go listen to it again in their car after the show.

“One of the parts of my job that I like the most is crafting an experience. A Chanticleer concert, I like to think, is less about we’re just going to hear the songs on the album, but we’re going to hear them in a way that takes us through a little bit of a journey. We start in that dark, early music sort of late-night world. And then there’s a moment where the ensemble blows out their candles and it’s pitch black.

“And then lights come on and we move into the more joyful, celebratory part of Christmas. I get to craft that journey every year and every year it’s a little different, but with the same structure. That’s one of the things I enjoy the most—leading everybody through that it gets darkest right before the light comes, which is so perfect at wintertime. It just makes sense with the season.”

A Chanticleer Christmas, Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center, 220 South Michigan, Tuesday, December 9, 7:30pm, cso.org. ADDENDUM: Chanticleer will not process by candlelight for their concert in Chicago due to open flame restrictions in Orchestra Hall.

Published in the print edition of the December 2025 issue, with the headline “A Bit Like Spooky Christmas: Chanticleer’s Performances Are a Winter’s Journey From Darkness To Light.”