ARCHIVE OF PAST SEASONS
BOSTON's PROFESSIONAL CHORAL ENSEMBLE PERFORMING MUSIC OF WOMEN COMPOSERS FROM THE 9th CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY
BOSTON's PROFESSIONAL CHORAL ENSEMBLE PERFORMING MUSIC OF WOMEN COMPOSERS FROM THE 9th CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY
BOSTON's PROFESSIONAL CHORAL ENSEMBLE PERFORMING MUSIC OF WOMEN COMPOSERS FROM THE 9th CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY
BOSTON's PROFESSIONAL CHORAL ENSEMBLE PERFORMING MUSIC OF WOMEN COMPOSERS FROM THE 9th CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY
BOSTON's PROFESSIONAL CHORAL ENSEMBLE PERFORMING MUSIC OF WOMEN COMPOSERS FROM THE 9th CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY
Photo by Julian Bullitt
PRESS & REVIEWS
"...beautiful and resonant..."
December 2020 BNN: News with Chris Lovett
WGBH Boston's All Things Considered with Brian O'Donovan April 2018
RECENT PRESS:
April 2020 WickedLocal : Keith Powers' Artists Alone series
December 2020 Brookline Hub: CAPPELLA CLAUSURA: FROM ONE QUARANTINE TO ANOTHER
January 2020 BMint Review: Chiara Margarita Cozzolani’s Magnificat: Hear It!
March 2019 WBUR’s The Artery with Andrea Shea Music By 'The Other Mendelssohn' Once Ignored, Brought Back To Life
April 2018 Brian O’Donovan, interview for NPR’s All Things Considered
Nov 10, 2015 Cappella Clausura to perform in Boston and Newton -Keith Powers/Daily News Correspondent
ON "EXULTET TERRA"
"The music connects well to its inspiration and makes for a rather engrossing half hour of truly gorgeous choral music with a deeply moving final movement."
"...material by von Bingen and Tann is equally marked by a gracefulness and lyricism that's amplified by Cappella Clausura's performances..."
ON "BIRDS OF THE PSALMS"
CD AND CONCERT
"...Breathtaking...perfect unison, an ensemble timbre, and an inspirational interpretation of the music... a delightful collection..."
SEE: COMPOSER PATRICIA VAN NESS WEBSITE
ON PAST CONCERTS
…[B]eautiful readings from Cappella Clausura, whose sensitivity to each musical nuance...[brought] the texts to life …Brava to... its terrific and tireless conductor Amelia Le Clair, without whom Sunday’s audience would have never heard this delightful, often deeply moving music.”
- Boston Musical Intelligencer
" [P]ersonal and inviting, extravagant and intimate."
- Boston Globe
"The 12 vocalists’ execution shone clean, pure and intelligent...The four-person instrumental ensemble was superb, often sounding as if there must be several more people playing.” more...
An inspired and gifted choral leader, LeClair creates programs in which composers and their pieces speak to and reflect on one another: the chant composed by Hildegard ended up as the inspiration for the music on the second half, Hillary Tann’s beautiful Exultet Terra."
Boston Musical Intelligencer, May, 2015
"There was not a poor choice on the program, in which chant and its descendants ranged from austere and troubled to rich and resplendent. The newest works were as rewarding as the oldest; the works by women composers more than held their own. And the singers, six men and six women, delivered pain and sorrow and love in full measure. Nothing plain about it."
Boston Globe, February, 2015
"Last April, Cappella Clausura offered “chant in context,” in which female singers costumed as nuns presented the sacred hours from a single liturgical book whose illuminated scenes were enlarged and hung in surrounding the space. Samples of food and drink of the era gave us a further taste of the daily life inside a convent.
In contrast, last Saturday’s “Soundings” invited us to “sit inside the chant” —less as historical recreation than as an immersion (surrounded from all sides) in a buffet of spiritual music drawn from or referencing Christian tradition in fresh ways. Director Amy LeClair and her ensemble (12 voices and several instruments) brought the chant to life with variety and spontaneity; the cumulative effect was inspiring and exhilarating."
Boston Musical Intelligencer, February, 2015
"The voices in the chapel were beautiful and resonant. We followed their sound. Angels' voices. The voices came from a place far different from the secular city whose streets we enjoyed walking in the spring evening -- the "world" these voices had given up. In the Gothic chapel cloistered women were singing the hours." more...
Robert Knox's Prosegarden: blog on "Illuminations"
"(Cappella Clausura's) heavenly voices...exhibit impeccable unison tuning, liquid dexterity,and an ensemble tone color which, forgive the cliché, is pure gold. "
Classical Voice New England, December, 2009
"...eavesdrop on paradise... personal and inviting, extravagant and intimate."
Boston Globe, December, 2012
"...the cadences of each phrase and each piece were nothing short of exquisite. There were many divine moments of perfect sonority..."
Boston Musical Intelligencer, February, 2011
reviews on
Boston Musical Intelligencer:
January 12, 2021 Chiara Margarita Cozzolani’s Magnificat: Hear It! by Julie Ingelfinger
February 24, 2020 Heavenly Vision Made Music by Virginia Newes
January 22, 2019 Capella Compelling to Its Devotees by Susan Miron
May 1, 2018 Revisiting the Edenic Sounds by Sudeep Agarwala
March 20, 2017 Caravansary from Cappella by Sudeep Agarwala
November 22, 2017 Machaut and Van Ness Interlaced by Virginia Newes
March 17, 2016 Historic Organ Ends Year of Silence by Lee Eiseman
May 4, 2015 Ah, Cappella non Clausura by Susan Miron
February 1, 2015 Soundings, Surroundings, Inspirings by Liane Curtis
March 6, 2014 Madrigals by an Italian Teenager, ca. 1590. by Liane Curtis
October 6, 2013 Singers Soar at Christ Church by Michael Johnson
April 29, 2013 Women Composers: Out of the Shadows by Susan Miron
December 23, 2011 Cappella Clausura’s Fine Set of Pearls by Elisa Birdseye
April 3, 2011 Spotlight on French Baroque by Cappella Clausura by Sudeep Agarwala
February 28, 2011 The Renaissance-Baroque Sulpitia by Rebecca Marchand
November 15, 2010 Virtues Brought to Life by Virginia Newes
May 18, 2009 Twelve Centuries of New Music from Capella Clausura by Laurence Berman
photo: Newton TAB
photo: Henridk Broekman
photo: Garrow Throop
