FREE LUNCH TIME RECITAL LONDON - Cantabile Youth Singers Of Silicon Valley

Enjoy a wonderful lunchtime concert in the stunning St Mary Abbots, a neo‑Gothic masterpiece by Sir George Gilbert Scott, built in 1872 and home to London’s tallest spire on a site with roots dating back to the 12th century.

The concert is free with a retiring collection in favour of Glass Door a charity which vision is a future where no one experiences homelessness in London offering advice, shelter and support within the community partners.

REPERTOIRE LIST

Dirait-on

Music by Morten Lauridsen • Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

English translation by Barbara & Erica Muhl

Salut Printemps

Music by Claude Debussy • Poem by Anatole de Ségur

Nocturne

Kyrie • Gloria • Agnus Dei (From Mass No. 6)

Music by György Orbán • Text from the Latin Mass

Ici-Bas!

Music by Gabriel Fauré • Text by Sully-Prudhomme

Arrangement by Alan Raines

La Nuit

Music and Words by Jean-Philippe Rameau

Arrangement by Nancy Grundahl

Catch a Falling Star

Music by Bob Chilcott • Text by John Donne

Ave Maris Stella

Music by Josef Gabriel Rheinberger • Text from Hymnus, St. Gallen

Ave Verum Corpus

Music by Francis Poulenc • Text from the Latin Mass

Mari

Music by Eva Ugalde Álvarez • Text by Josu Zubia

Imagine

Music and Lyrics by John Lennon

Arrangement by Mac Huff

Blackbird

Music and Lyrics by John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Arrangement by Audrey Snyder

Love of My Life

Music and Lyrics by Freddie Mercury

Arrangement by Carolyn Goates

There Has to Be a Song

Music by Andrea Ramsey • Text by Bob Benson

Bridge Over Troubled Water

Music and Lyrics by Paul Simon • Arrangement by Kirby Shaw

Founded in 1994 and under the leadership of Artistic Director Elena Sharkova since 2004, Cantabile Youth Singers of Silicon Valley is an internationally recognized choral program providing world-class music education, vocal training, and performance opportunities to over 180 students in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.

Open to all children who love to sing, Cantabile offers seven progressive levels of training to students ages 6 to 18. In addition to treble choirs, our Young Men’s Division provides training, concert opportunities, and camaraderie for singers with changing and settled voices.

Each season, students participate in rehearsals, master classes, concerts, festivals, and international tours that engage their hearts, minds, and voices in creative learning that fosters community building, arts appreciation and advocacy, self-discipline, leadership, and teamwork. Cantabile’s unique and innovative curriculum includes mindfulness, yoga and movement, improvisation, and a focus on compassion and appreciation for the diversity of humankind, cultures, languages, and the arts. Cantabile’s choirs appear annually with leading San Francisco Bay Area arts organizations such as Symphony San Jose, Stanford Symphony, San Jose Opera and Ballet companies. Nationally and internationally recognized for innovative concert programs, Cantabile’s premier choir, Vocalise, has been chosen to perform at such prestigious professional forums as the XII and X World Symposiums on Choral Music and American Choral Directors Association National Conventions. In 2019, Cantabile claimed a Gold Medal at the European Choir Games in Sweden, earning top honors in a category that featured youth choruses from around the world. Committed to promoting new choral music for young voices, Cantabile’s New Music Commission Fund (established in 2014) has engaged composers Jocelyn Hagen, Will Todd, Tim Sharp, Andrea Ramsey, Stephen Hatfield, Eric Tuan, and Tom Shelton, among others.

Elena Sharkova, Artistic Director

Native of St. Petersburg, conductor Elena Sharkova holds graduate degrees in conducting from Rimski-Korsakov State Conservatoire and Western Michigan University. Residing in the US since 1993, Ms. Sharkova has enjoyed a busy and varied career as choir director, university professor, clinician, and music editor. At home in San Jose, California, she is the chorus master for the Symphony San Jose and Artistic Director of Cantabile Youth Singers of Silicon Valley, a choral education and performance program for over 180 local singers ages 6-18. Ms. Sharkova regularly appears with professional artists as a guest conductor; career highlights include directing Grammy-Award winning male choir Chanticleer, residencies with the BBC Singers in London and Glasgow, series of concerts with Seraphic Fire (USA) in 2017, 2020 and 2024, as well as collaborations and projects with the Grammy Award–winners Kronos Quartet and Houston Chamber Choir, Vocal Arts Ensemble Cincinnati, opera and ballet companies of San Jose, and American actor Ryan Gosling. Ms Sharkova enjoys working with people of all ages, abilities and nationalities, and has performed and presented in 26 countries on four continents. She passionately advocates for the importance of informal singing and of building communities through joyful and meaningful music-making, combining singing with movement and improvisation. In association with Carl Fischer Music Publishing and National Publishing, Sharkova edits and promotes 20th-21st century Slavic choral music.