Cantigas Women's Choir'Celebrate Culture, Celebrate Sisterhood, Celebrate Song

Celebrating 25 Years of Voices, Cultures, and Community

Cantigas Women's Choir is dedicated to creating a welcoming and inclusive environment for everyone, as members of our choir, as concert musicians, and as attendees at our events. We believe that music has the power to bring people together, and we strive to ensure that our choir is accessible and accommodating to all members of our community.

25 years of Cantigas!

This season marks an extraordinary milestone: the 25th year of Cantigas Women's Choir!

For 25 years, Cantigas has brought people together through music, celebrated cultures and languages from around the world, built community across generations, and created meaningful connections through song. As we prepare for this special season, we are excited to launch a year-long celebration centered on our theme: Celebrating 25 Years of Voices, Cultures, and Community.

There is so much to celebrate, and this announcement is just the beginning! Stay tuned for much more to come.

Listen to Cantigas' concerts on YouTube!

Says Cantigas Artistic Director Dr. Hannah Carr: "A different song entitled “Donal Óg” is familiar to most Sean Nós (Old style) singers in Ireland. However, this version of the lyrics and melody is rarely heard and difficult to trace. I found it on an album called “Idir an Dá Sholas” (Between the Two Lights) by sisters Maighread and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill. The Ní Dhomhnaill sisters come from a remote region in the Donegal Gaeltacht (Irish speaking area) known for its musicians (Enya comes from and still lives here) and rich folklore traditions. “Donal Óg” tells the story not only of the heartbreak of unrequited love, but of the charmed fate of this “Golden Boy” and the freedom of young men. In this lament, the gulf of spurned love is compounded by the opportunity to travel and explore afforded to men and denied to women during the great migrations out of Ireland."

Cantigas Women's Choir is a non-profit organization, made up of a diverse and inclusive group of women, based in Hudson County, NJ. As part of our mission, through the power of our voices, we work to connect audiences of all backgrounds by performing a broad spectrum of music, both ancient and contemporary, from singing traditions around the world. We come together to grow musically, connect with each other personally, and honor the people whose music we sing.

In addition to our community outreach, Cantigas has performed for the Eastern Division of the American Choral Directors Association (in 2010) and works from composers including Leonardo San Juan, Paul Hennessee, Lillian Redl, and Wassim Ibrahim, whose "Damascus Breeze" premiered at Cantigas's spring 2015 concert. In the summer of 2016, a group of Cantigas traveled to Buenos Aires to sing with sister choir Coral Femenino de Caballito and Coral San Cirano. In the summer of 2023, Cantigas traveled to Ireland to sing in conjunction with Diva Voces Female Choir to perform the premiere of Sean Doherty's original composition "Eternal Rebel" based on a poem by Eva Gore-Booth.

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