BOSTON, MA: The Handel and Haydn Society of Boston and vocal ensemble Chanticleer of San Francisco won a Grammy Award in the Best Small Ensemble Performance category for their recording of Sir John Tavener's Lamentations and Praises. This marks the first Grammy for the Society. The annual awards of the National Academy of Recording Arts were handed out in a Feb. 23 ceremony in New York City.

“We’re absolutely thrilled!” states Handel and Haydn Executive Director Mary Deissler. “This award is a tribute to the hard work and dedication that our musicians and the singers of Chanticleer put into the project.” Deissler adds, “We’ve been recognized by our peers around the country, which really means a lot to us. It’s great to bring a Grammy Award home to Boston.”

Under the direction of Chanticleer Music Director Joseph Jennings, "Lamentations and Praises" features the 12 male voices of Chanticleer and members of the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra. The work was a co-commission by the Society, Chanticleer and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and made its world premiere in Berkeley, California in January 2002.

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Lamentations and Praises was composed by Sir John Tavener in 2000, and is based on an Orthodox service for Holy Friday. Lamentations and Praises features Chanticleer, string quartet, alto flute, bass trombone and a percussion section of timpani, Byzantine monastery bell, Tibetan temple bowl, tam-tam, tubular bells and simantron (a large wooden sounding-board struck with a hammer).

Now in its 188th season, the Handel and Haydn Society specializes in music for chorus and orchestra, and offers historically informed performances, in which music is played on the instruments and with the techniques available to the composers in their time. Under the artistic leadership of Music Director Grant Llewellyn, the Society performs music composed in the Baroque and Classical eras, and also regularly features innovative elements in its programs, including world premieres, dance, jazz and the semi-staging of opera. The Society was inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame last December in a ceremony at Symphony Hall.

Chanticleer is the only full-time classical vocal ensemble in the United States. Named after the clear-singing rooster in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chanticleer was founded in 1978 by tenor Louis Botto, who served as Artistic Director until his death in 1997. Joseph Jennings has served as the ensemble’s Music Director since 1984.