St. Charles Singers Unveil 2025-2026 Concert Season
The St. Charles Singers, led by founder and music director Jeffrey Hunt, will launch its 41st concert season, 2025–2026, in October in its hometown of St. Charles, Illinois, with “Time to Explore.”
The St. Charles Singers is a chamber choir dedicated to choral music in all its forms. Hailed by American Record Guide as “a national treasure,” the mixed-voice ensemble includes professional singers, choral directors, and voice instructors, some of whom perform with other top-tier Chicago choirs.
“The new season is filled with musical discoveries that our choir will relish and that will surprise and delight our listeners,” said Hunt.
The St. Charles Singers’ season-opener concert, “Time to Explore,” illuminates how classical composers have availed themselves of folk melodies. Some of the works are rarely heard and all but two are new to the choir’s repertoire. The program opens October 18-19, 2025, with the American premiere of some of Anglo-Irish composer William Villiers Stanford’s late Romantic settings of Irish folk songs, followed by Johannes Brahms’ Zigeunerlieder (Gypsy Songs), Op. 10.
The choir’s December 5-7, 2025, “Candlelight Carols” program, subtitled “Celebrating a World of Carols,” will offer an international perspective on Christmas music. Guest artist will be Croatian-born Chicago guitar virtuoso Goran Ivanovic. Audiences will also hear seasonal songs by two Scandinavian composers: Gustav Nordqvist’s “Jul, jul, strålande jul!” (Christmas, Christmas, Radiant Christmas!) from Sweden and Ola Gjeilo’s “Det hev ei rose sprunge” (Spotless Rose), a joyful, melodic Norwegian setting of a hymn of German origin. The program will also include French carols arranged by Stephen Paulus (“Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella”) and John Rutter (“Quittez, Pasteur”).
In the new year, the St. Charles Singers will host its third annual “Choral Connections” concerts in February 2026. The ensemble’s community-outreach initiative showcases the choir alongside choral ensembles from six area high schools, many of whose choral directors also sing with the St. Charles Singers.
“The experience has proven inspirational and rewarding for the student choristers, the St. Charles Singers, and the entire audience,” choirmaster Hunt says.
In June 2026, the choir will conclude its 41st season in Wheaton and St. Charles with “You, Us, Connected.” It’s a program of a cappella sacred and other religious music that the choir will perform in Italian cathedrals during their June concert tour to Venice and Rome, including the Vatican.
For a complete listing and description of all 2025-2026 season events, please visit stcharlessingers.com or call 630-513-5272,
