Chanticleer’s purity, grit on full display in eclectic show

Chanticleer, the male a cappella ensemble from San Francisco, is now in its 27th season. Over the years, there have been many changes among the 12 singers, but the finely honed style that characterizes music director Joseph Jennings’ group remains a constant.

So too does the eclectic programming that drew an appreciative audience to fill the Irvine Barclay Theatre on Friday despite a heavy rain. The music the men sang in the saucily titled “Women, Saintly and Otherwise” program ranged from the Renaissance to the blues and included several works written for the group.

Highpoints included sublime versions of John Tavener’s “Song for Athene,” most widely known through its performance at Princess Diana’s funeral; Vassily Titov’s 17th century Eastern Orthodox hymn “The Angel Cried Out” (sung in Russian); and Eric William Barnum’s lyrical “She Walks in Beauty.”

In these selections, the singers floated lines with polished purity, explored shimmering colors and, with their full range of voices from countertenor to bass, broke forth in the Titov hymn in a rich diapason.

This isn’t to say they performed everything equally well. Blended sound tended to dominate over expression. When they ventured four stanzas of Monteverdi’s “Lagrimae d’amante” (“Laments of a Lover as He Stands at the Tomb of His Beloved”), the singing emerged as too refined and homogenized to do dramatic justice to the text and the occasional dissonance and strangeness of the music.

In this regard, the Korean work-song “Jindo Arirang,” arranged by “Jacqueline” Jeeyoung Kim, the group’s 2003 composer in residence, allowed for some welcome vocal grit and individual personality.