08 March 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BOSTON, MA — Renaissance Men, Boston’s professional male vocal chamber ensemble, has launched a $20,000 fundraising campaign to fund their highly-anticipated debut album, RenMen Laments [Click Here for the Campaign Website]. Set to be recorded in the summer of 2017, the record will feature works by Pablo Casals, Darius Milhaud, and New England-based composer Patricia Van Ness. Highlights of the record include Thomas Tallis’s Lamentations of Jeremiah, as well as the world premiere recording of The Promises of Isaiah the Prophet by internationally-renowned composer Daniel E. Gawthrop, a new multi-movement work for men’s voices commissioned by Renaissance Men during the 2015-16 season. Publications of the musical score will be available for display and order starting on March 8, 2017, directly from the composer at the American Choral Directors Association National Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and subsequently online at the composer’s website, www.dunstanhouse.com.
RenMen Laments will be produced by New York City-based Chris Sclafani, a Grammy-nominated engineer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist whose recent projects include albums by pop music’s biggest celebrities: Ed Sheeran (÷), Rixton (Let the Road), and Justin Bieber’s Purpose (2017 Grammy Nomination, Album of the Year). Sclafani and Renaissance Men Artistic Director, Eric Christopher Perry, have known each other since they were college students together at Fredonia State University in Western New York State. “We were brothers of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, men’s national music fraternity, and were also frequent musical collaborators, ranging from classical music to live productions of the Rocky Horror Show,” said Perry. “His extraordinary musicianship, keen ear for vibrant soundscapes, and his vast experience in the pop music genre will help us create a brand new way to listen to classical vocal chamber music. It is going to be so fresh and so alive.”
RenMen Laments will be released independently in December 2017. More information about the album and its Indiegogo-based fundraising campaign can be found at www.renmenmusic.com.
About Renaissance Men
The Boston choral scene is a vigorous one, teeming with artistic outlets for those singers passionate about ensemble performance. Therefore, it was strange to discover that so few groups existed in the area devoted to the wealth of repertoire written throughout the centuries for men’s voice. A few trips to the bar, many email chains, and some truly horrible group name suggestions later, Renaissance Men was formed in January of 2014. From their beginnings as a sextet, the group expanded to nine in their first official season. In November of 2014, they shed, somewhat, from Boston bred early music backgrounds in favor of a program of American religious and folk music entitled RenMen Roots. The audience may have been shocked to see erstwhile Bach specialists strumming away on banjo and upright bass, but their hooting and hollering validated RenMen’s first major attempt to push repertoire boundaries. In February 2016, The Boston Globe highlighted RenMen for their groundbreaking musical retrospective, RenMen 1965, which juxtaposed traditional choral music and rock/pop songs of the year. It also included the world premiere of Five Clippings from 1965, a multi-movement work for men’s voices using texts from Boston Globe articles published in 1965, by Charles Stacy III, then a student at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. This concert was featured in RenMen’s debut at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s “Stir” series in the 2016-17 season. In less than three years, Renaissance Men has paved their way into Boston’s cultural landscape with seven constructed concert series, the performance of several U.S. and world premieres by internationally-celebrated composers such as Patricia Van Ness and Daniel E. Gawthrop, and the garnering of a devoted following in their concerts, broadcasted live-streams, and social media outlets. Dedicated to the art of collaboration, RenMen has partnered with Boston City Singers, Ensemble Musica Humana, and in October of 2016 was featured in a talkback session on ensemble marketing and branding co-hosted by Boston Singers Resource and Greater Boston Choral Consortium. Renaissance Men is a proud member of Chamber Music America.
Renaissance Men is comprised of Boston and New York’s most active chamber musicians, educators, and music aficionados – founded in 2014 by Anthony Burkes Garza, General Manager, Eric Christopher Perry, Artistic Director/Conductor, Will Prapestis, Social Media Consultant, Peter Schilling, Business Manager, and tenor, Alexander Nishibun. RenMen’s 2016-17 roster will also feature Gene Stenger, Garry McLinn, Francesco Logozzo, Kilian Mooney, Dominick Matsko, Brian Church, and Benjamin Pfeil.
CONTACT
More information and media selections can be found at www.renmenmusic.com.
General Manager: Anthony Burkes Garza
Artistic Director: Eric Christopher Perry
Electronic Press Kit: http://www.reverbnation.com/rpk/renaissancemen
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