Cantoría: From Renaissance Spain to New Horizons in Latin America

The Spanish vocal group Cantoría, founded and directed by Jorge Losana, celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. Now established as one of the leading ensembles for Iberian Renaissance and early Baroque vocal music, it continues to expand its presence in Europe and, gradually, in South America. Jorge Losana looks back on this evolution, just a few weeks before a concert at the Louvre on October 7 which will inaugurate “Centuries of Gold and Shadow,” a series conceived in conjunction with the museum’s Zurbarán exhibition.

Jorge Losana, tenor, conductor and founder of Cantoría, a Spanish ensemble established in 2016 and specialising in vocal music of the Iberian Renaissance. © Samuel Pereira

In ten years, Cantoría has carved out a distinctive place for itself among Europe’s early music ensembles. Founded in 2016 by Jorge Losana, the Spanish group has made the polyphony of the Iberian Renaissance its repertoire of choice. After Utrecht and Ambronay, a new chapter is beginning: as an ensemble in residence at the Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical in 2026–27, Cantoría is expanding its repertoire to include Buxtehude, Monteverdi, Schütz, and John Blow. On 7 October at the Louvre, it will inaugurate a series devoted to the Spanish Golden Age, centred on Zurbarán, coinciding with the release of its second album on Alpha Classics. How can the ensemble grow without losing the freedom of the quartet, move into opera or larger-scale forces, and how far can it broaden its horizons, with Latin America now coming into view? Jorge Losana discusses this new turning point.

After productive residencies at the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht (Netherlands) and the Festival d’Ambronay (France), the new season sees Cantoría as resident ensemble for Spain’s Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical (CNDM)—a Ministry of Culture agency charged with the promotion of classical music, flamenco and jazz throughout the country, as well as the international promotion of Spanish artists and culture. The residency will comprise six different programmes across eight concerts, two outside Spain: Trondheim’s Barokkfest in February 2027 and Potsdam in June 2027. Though, as part of the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Philip II, the emphasis will mainly be on Spanish repertoire, they will also perform Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri and a programme of works by Monteverdi and Schütz highlighting the influence of Venice, both in Madrid.

A major highlight of the new season will be their Paris performance in the Louvre Museum auditorium on October 7, opening “Centuries of Gold and Shadow”, a cycle of concerts which will provide a musical context for the Zurbarán exhibition. The programme is based on the repertoire they recorded for their second CD, to be released in October on the Alpha Classics label. “We’re going to focus on the villancico and use this entertaining form of music—with orchestra, with voices, with jokes, with its religious side and its dances—to show the musical and artistic context of Seville from the end of the 16th century to Zurbarán’s time there. There is even a direct, personal connection with one of the composers, Cristóbal Galán: Zurbarán was named as executor in the will of the composer’s wife. We will mainly explore music from Seville and Madrid but will also perform music by authors from Valladolid, because, parallel to the Zurbarán exhibition, the Louvre is holding another one centred on Spanish polychrome sculpture, in collaboration with the Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid.”

A journey off the beaten path

Cantoría’s founder, tenor Jorge Losana (Murcia, 1986), loves communicating, organising and getting people involved. He started conducting early, while still at high school, but felt the conventional route through the public music school system was too rigid and inflexible, with its entrance examinations for eight-year-olds and early specialisation. “I have always been quite creative when it comes to learning,” he explains, “chaotic, perhaps. I found it hard to follow the established path and I have always sought my own one out. I switched from one instrument to another, played the piano, the guitar and the recorder. I had private tutors, sang in choirs, at church, with the scouts, everywhere. I did many different styles: contemporary choral music, gospel and African.”