Chanticleer part of Charleston Concert Association season

As a cappella singing goes, you can’t beat Chanticleer. This San Francisco-based 12-member male ensemble offers some of the finest, clearest, engaging vocal performances you’re likely to hear.

They are expert ancient music purveyors, sublime modernists and rollicking popsters. Give them Monteverdi or Gesualdo and you’ll get back something luminescent. Give them John Corigliano or the Chinese-American composer Chen Yi and you will think twice about contemporary music.

Or give them traditional spirituals, a famous Broadway tune or traditional Mexican number and listen to what they can do. It’s all a bit jaw-dropping.

You will get a chance to hear the 35-year-old Chanticleer in its program, “The Siren’s Call,” on Tuesday, presented by the Charleston Concert Association at the Sottile Theatre. The one-night-only program begins in the 14th century with Andrea Gabrieli and ends with a 21st-century version of “Blues in the Night” and “Wade in the Water.”

Chanticleer, named for the clear-singing rooster in Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” has won various awards, including a couple of Grammys, and keeps getting critical accolades. The group gives about 100 concerts a year throughout the world. In its midst are composers and arrangers whose handiwork often is heard during performances.

The Charleston program, “The Siren’s Call,” spans the centuries. It features a work by Chen Yi, written for Chanticleer on the occasion of the ensemble’s 35th anniversary, called “I Hear the Siren’s Call.” It mixes Chinese and contemporary musical idioms to tell a story about sailors lured upon the rocks by the seductive voices of the sirens.

The 12 men of Chanticleer sing soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass parts to produce a full range of sound and expression.

You’ve got to hear it to believe it.