at the very least I hope you’ll keep Hannah who is relatively new and really nice. Al;so Hidenori has a lot of character.
Got it!
Many thanks, Richard; all understood. Good luck 
Has anyone else noticed that, at least when I’ve used singers to sing the word “A-men,” it comes out pronounced as “AY-men”? That’s not standard practice for most choral (or even solo, I would think) applications. And obviously it’s a word that church- and choral-musicians encounter all the time.
“Ay-men”: is this in an English choral setting or in a Latin one?
Aren’t we glad it doesn’t render as “Ay-main” 
[edit] some wikipedia explanations:
In English, the word amen has two primary pronunciations, ah-MEN (/ɑːˈmɛn/) or ay-MEN (/eɪˈmɛn/),[7] with minor additional variation in emphasis (e.g., the two syllables may be equally stressed instead of placing primary stress on the second). In Anglophone North American usage, the ah-men pronunciation is used in performances of classical music and in churches with more formalized liturgy.
The ay-men pronunciation is a product of the Great Vowel Shift (i.e., it dates from the 15th century); it is associated with Irish Protestantism and with conservative evangelical denominations generally. It is also the pronunciation typically used in gospel music.[8]
what’s curious about this is that the pronunciation is not in fact quite consistent across voices and situations. Generally speaking you change “amen” to “umen” or “aamen” to get the desired pronunciation. Probably Cantai initially had gospel/US church pronunciation in mind but I hope that’s going to change now as more people would like to use it for serious sacred music .
There has even been a radio show on this - quite entertaining (scroll to the bottom for audio).
With due respect this is the point of view of the United States which is not the center of gravity with regard to the pronunciation of lyrics in church music written in Latin. The vast majority of classical church works have been written in Europe – many of them even before the U.S. has been founded – and there is only one pronunciation – especially in Italian, the Latin descendant – the open monophthong A.
Amen to that 
OT: if I grab a beer for every half-step-up modulation in this song, I’ll get really drunk…
Go for it! It’s the weekend!
Well, v. 3 is now available. I’ve installed it and re-rendered one choral piece with it - very nice so far. Just thought I’d start the commentary … more to come.
I go out for an hour with the dog and look what’s waiting Will report my own findings when there’s something to report.
My first impression: Ottetto sounds very promising; I haven’t noticed any major pronunciation issues in Latin or English, though I’ve only tried three pieces so far.
However, there are still places where Cantai starts singing even during a rest before a note.
I’m fairly impressed with Ottetto. The individual parts are much more lyrical that the choral voices. I’ve not encountered singing on rests, though. One thing with which I am trying to decide about is how “-er-ing”, syllables at the end of words (e.g., wandering) and when on different notes, are sung as a single syllable instead of two distinct syllables. Sometimes it’s, well, OK, and sometimes not so much…
To begin with: I’m really impressed by the singers of Ottetto. Beautiful singing, warm, lyrical, with exactly that vibrato, that just make a tone alive, and not more than that. The mixing of the voices (I mean the parts with each other) is also beautiful.
A few little things: the word ‘of’ is sometimes spoken as uhf (with the uh of for example trouble), but not always.
And at the end of the first part of a phrase, with 2 half notes for the sopranos, 4 quarter notes for the altos and basses, and a whole note for the tenors: when I make a little ceasura too long at the end of that bar, there is confusion (some notes too short, a note only the last part), so it is difficult to let ‘breath’ the singers on that place.
But what a big step forward is Ottetto! Congratulations!
Unfortunately still not usable without an internet connection 
For me a ‘normal’ bass should be able to sing E in forte, not G and a very talented bass can go down do forte D or C…but as I said: E is standard. G is for sure Bariton and not bass…sorry
yes, a decent bass should of course be able to sing convincingly down at around D or E but your average choir doesn’t always have many such people (often so-called basses are simply those who cannot sing high enough to be tenors). Anyway, my comment was about Cantai having problems singing the low notes and not about what one might expect in a competent choir. I suspect we’re not in disagreement!
indeed – I have a friend who actually sang just that last summer. He regarded Mahler as being completely out of order although he could just about manage himself!