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National Finalist | 2022 American Prize for Choral Competition
theamericanprize.blogspot.com/2022/04/national-finalistscomposers-music-for_01856354924.html?view=magazine
1st Place | 8th Japan International Choral Composition Competition
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqZhlUQQ5P0
Choral Arts Initiative: PREMIERE|Project
www.choralartsinitiative.org/post/2022-premiere-project-fellows-announced
3rd Place | IFCM | Interview published in the International Choral Bulletin
http://icb.ifcm.net/en_US/ifcm-international-composition-competition/
theamericanprize.blogspot.com/2022/04/national-finalistscomposers-music-for_01856354924.html?view=magazine
1st Place | 8th Japan International Choral Composition Competition
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqZhlUQQ5P0
Choral Arts Initiative: PREMIERE|Project
www.choralartsinitiative.org/post/2022-premiere-project-fellows-announced
3rd Place | IFCM | Interview published in the International Choral Bulletin
http://icb.ifcm.net/en_US/ifcm-international-composition-competition/
Concert Blog
02/21-25/2023
ACDA in Cincinnati!
There were so many wonderful takeaways from the national conference last week. The Jason Max Ferdinand Singers and the Chamber Choirs from CSULB and the University of Akron were particular standouts. The kindling of relationships old and new refreshed my spirit. The premieres not simply of living composers, but of composers who were in the room (Saunder Choi, Sydney Guillaume, Kenyon Duncan, Mickey McGroarty, Jeffrey Derus) or performing themselves, gave me hope for the future of this artform. Perhaps the most significant lesson was that while there are still gate-keepers in one sense or another, the varied repertoire and the myriad messages therein affirmed that choral music is for everyone and everyone should have a place in it.
Lately, I've been thinking a great deal about what we do with what little time we have, but if I can do this with my life (conduct, sing, compose, teach, chat, drink, and stay up way too late), then it will be everything I need. Choral music gives me courage.
ALSO...
01/21/2023
The LSU Choral Symposium!
Earlier today, we had a fantastic workshop wherein we paired student composers from across Louisiana with graduate choral conductors from LSU for a full day of new music, coffee, pastries, new music, Lebanese food for lunch, and more new music, all while prospective LSU students were touring campus! A hearty congratulations goes to this year’s cohort of Composition Fellows for their evocative and imaginative work. As the Founder and Artistic Director of this project, I get a privileged look into not only the creative process of young composers, but I also get a unique perspective on who they are. What's their message? What do they want to say to the world? Most of the pieces fit into two camps: either they're clarion calls (warnings of danger and injustice) or they're statements of gratitude and peace. The texts could be original, biblical, or Shakespearean, but the core of the music reveals the same truth: that these young composers live with the cognitive dissonance of existential dread co-mingled with mindful appreciation - as if to say "I'm alarmed by climate change AND the stars are beautiful."
Stars may not be full restitution for all our ills, but they are a comfort.
12/02/2022
As they do every Fall, the LSU School of Music just completed their annual Candlelight Concert. While a major feature of the concert were the many mass number with nearly all the LSU choirs, including Michael Engelhardt's "And Suddenly" and Will Todd's "Three More Jazz Carols," the highlights for me were Margaret Bonds gorgeous "St. Francis Prayer" and the Louisiana premiere of my "Schneeflöckchen, Weißröckchen." Both were conducted by dear friends and colleagues of mine, Mary Grasso (MM '23) and Eunbae Jeon (DMA '23). Since my piece uses snow as a metaphor for reconciling childhood dreams with adult realities, the Union Theater projected snowflakes along the back wall, which was a nice touch. And what can I say about Eunbae? He deftly led the LSU A Cappella Choir through tenderness and heartbreak and back again. Sublime!
11/14/2022
The LSU School of Music just held their Undergraduate Composition Recital and it was wonderfully inventive and beautifully performed. There was a sensitive art song for mezzo soprano and string quartet that was giving off strong Baroque opera vibes, a philosophical tone poem for chamber orchestra that featured virtuosic meter changes, and startling piece of performance art with stream-of-consciousness poetry, a triangle, a call bell, and finger painting. It brought back so many memories of coordinating my own undergrad composition recital and how stressful it was. Major kudos to all the featured composers and to the organizers.
It was a wild evening. I love seeing how young minds interpret the world with music.
09/08/2022
This week, I heard the European premiere of A Voice is Heard in Ramah by Dr. Ethan Sperry and the Portland State Chamber Choir at the World Choral Expo in Lisbon Portugal. I can't overstate how big this was. Frieder Bernius, Founder and Conductor of the Kammerchor Stuttgart was in the audience; as was María Guinand, Jan Schumacher, Ki Adams, the leadership of the International Federation for Choral Music and conductors from all over the world. It was a glorious week of concerts and presentations. Hearing choirs from Canada, Namibia, Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany, Jordan, and the US share concerts stages is an unbelievably inspiring and rare occasion. If you ever have the opportunity to attend an IFCM event, especially the expo or symposium, do it! What glorious time this has been! I also had the joy of running into Dr. Edith Copley, Professor Emeritus from Northern Arizona University, and many others.
I've been fortunate to hear several different alto soloists on Ramah and they each bring something unique to the music. A soloist who pours themselves into the music is able to pull all sorts of delicious inflections from the score that even I didn't envision.
07/02/2022
Tonight was the night! Choral Arts Initiative premiered my piece Paradise as part of the PREMIERE|Project Festival. Thank you to Brandon Elliott, Connor Scott, Kyrstin Ohta, Lorraine Joy Welling and all of the stellar choral artists for a glorious week of music-making. Also a special thank you to Dominick DiOrio, Dale Trumbore, Derrick Skye and the wonderful cohort of composers! I learned so much from each of you!
It was an exhilarating concert, filled with as many styles as there were composer's on the program. I could talk at length about each one of them, but what was plainly evident was that each composer attempted to capture what it's like to be alive right now - full of grief and anxiety, scared for the future, but also courageous. I was honored to be among them.
06/02/2022
Prior to Dr. Ethan Sperry's arrival, the Portland State Chamber Choir was conducted by Dr. Bruce Browne and founded by Dr. David Wilson. Sadly, both Drs. Browne and Wilson passed away during the pandemic and the generations of musicians they left behind have been unable to properly honor them, until now. This past Sunday, the Chamber Choir and over 60 alumni joined together for a fitting tribute to their legacy and I was lucky enough to join them. But that wasn't the only reason I was there.
Ethan had invited me to join Chamber choir for their Friday rehearsal, ahead of any alumni, because he had a surprise up his sleeve. They sang my music. A Voice is Heard in Ramah was written in 2019 as a window into the anger and sorrow that comes from the cyclical nature of violence, especially against children. Finally hearing it live was eviscerating, and it was even more poignant given the shooting in Uvalde,Texas a few short days prior.
The Chamber Choir brilliantly performed my piece on the concert, and I learned that they would be taking it on tour to the World Choral Expo in Lisbon, Portugal! I also got to meet several other excellent PSU composers while I was there, including Justin Miller, Nicholas Nipp, and Henry Alexander. I'm honored to be on the program with you!
I can't thank Ethan and the members of Chamber Choir enough for bring my music to life and a special thank you to Della Simone for her powerful, heartrending solo.
05/08/2022
The choral department at Louisiana State University has been in transition this past year. After the retirement of Dr. John Dickson, it was announced that while they conducted a search for his successor, professor emeritus Dr. Kenneth Fulton would be returning and that Dr. Edith Copley (newly retired from Northern Arizona University) would join LSU faculty member Dr. Trey Davis in leading A Cappella Choir.
On May 6th, we had the final concert of the year under the baton of Dr. Copley and what a wonderful way to end 21-22! We sang Derrick Skye's A Vision Unfolding, Rosephanye Powell's To Sit and Dream, Ēriks Ešenvalds' Rivers of Light, along with several other pieces. LSU Chorale and Tiger Glee Club also performed and they sounded marvelous! A special shoutout to LSU violin professor Espen Lilleslåtten for his silky and resonant performance of Vaugh Williams' Serenade to Music with the combined choirs. I learned so much from watching these three masterful conductors this year!
AND NOW the search has concluded. The next Director of Choral Studies at LSU will be Dr. Alissa Rowe!
www.lsu.edu/cmda/music/blog/public/alissa-rowe.php
03/20/2022
Orson Rehearsed by Daron Hagen @ the LSU Turner-Fischer Center for Opera
Most of the time, I find operas to be wildly unbelievable - not simply because they have fantastical or ridiculous plots, or even because they’re often over-acted (or under-acted). It’s mainly because of character development. I find myself in the theatre thinking “Nobody who isn’t on mood elevating medication would think that, or say that, or do that.” No matter the setting, be it ancient Egypt or the 1960’s, the characters should still be human beings, not caricatures of human beings. This is why Orson Rehearsed was so refreshing. Though time became unhinged, it’s entirely believable that the last few seconds of consciousness are filled with a jumble of significant memories. We’ve all heard the adage about that, but here, the seemingly chaotic recollections form a narrative all their own.
This opera is well written for voices and the combination of the three leads sound nearly choral. The orchestration makes way for the voice, supporting the singers with a wide variety of colors. The three leads(in both casts) absolutely chewed the scenery. It was interesting to see which incarnations of Orson actually interreacted with each other. It’s seemed like the two Orsons from the past were comforting the Orson who currently is, but it was unclear whether the current Orson realized who was with him.
I adored the video component. It added a sense of desolation. The barrage of simple images and the countdowns ratcheted up the tension from scene to scene. Rather than simply being a novelty, it was integral to the both the plot and the overall aesthetic. Furthermore, Orson Welles was a film maker himself, so it made sense that he would be seeing replays in his dying moments. I told the composer afterwards that it was the longest and most glorious death scene I had ever witnessed. Far from dying of a broken heart or singing an aria after getting stabbed in the neck or being dragged to hell as in so many other operas, Orson Rehearsed was legitimately convincing.
This isn’t your grandma’s park and bark. This is the future.
www.lsu.edu/cmda/music/programs/opera/index.php
02/13/2022
Everywhere is Music.
This weekend, I had the distinct pleasure of experiencing the 11th anniversary of the Experimental Music and Digital Music program at Louisiana State University. What an exhilarating and fascinating celebration!
For a long time, I was under the grave misapprehension that much of electronic music sounds…well, electronic; as if it comes from a lab rather than a studio - clinical, calculating, and inhuman. Not only was a wrong, I was spectacularly wrong. The incomparable Pamela Z and the featured student composers created sound worlds that showcased the versatility of this artform magnificently. This music has an immediacy, a vulnerability that makes it more accessible and emotionally engaging than I would have thought. It was comforting and terrifying. It was eviscerating as only the best music can be.
I was amazed at the creativity. I heard a brand-new ukulele comforting an older ukulele in disrepair. I heard a flower bloom across the strings of a cello. I heard the sporadically canonic recitation of poetry. I saw someone swim. I felt someone breathe.
The most salient take away for me was that music is everywhere. Music is in the airport, on city streets, in darkened alleys. Music lives in between our words and between our moments of attention. One of Pamela Z’s most touching pieces was “Unknown Person” from Baggage Allowance. She saw music in the script we all hear every time we check our bags for a flight. How beautifully disorienting to be so moved by something we normally take for granted!
It was a fantastic series of concerts and presentations! Thank you and congratulations to Dr. Jesse Allison the EMDM program, and all their students. And thank you to Pamela Z for opening the eyes of my ears.
www.pamelaz.com/https://emdm.cct.lsu.edu/
ACDA in Cincinnati!
There were so many wonderful takeaways from the national conference last week. The Jason Max Ferdinand Singers and the Chamber Choirs from CSULB and the University of Akron were particular standouts. The kindling of relationships old and new refreshed my spirit. The premieres not simply of living composers, but of composers who were in the room (Saunder Choi, Sydney Guillaume, Kenyon Duncan, Mickey McGroarty, Jeffrey Derus) or performing themselves, gave me hope for the future of this artform. Perhaps the most significant lesson was that while there are still gate-keepers in one sense or another, the varied repertoire and the myriad messages therein affirmed that choral music is for everyone and everyone should have a place in it.
Lately, I've been thinking a great deal about what we do with what little time we have, but if I can do this with my life (conduct, sing, compose, teach, chat, drink, and stay up way too late), then it will be everything I need. Choral music gives me courage.
ALSO...
- I was great to see so many new faces at the Composer Fair and what an honor it was to share the space with Dominick DiOrio, Mari Esabel Valverde, Melissa Dunphy, Michael Bussewitz-Quarm, Jen Wagner, and so many more!
- I am so proud of the conducting studio at Louisiana State University. Our booth at the College Fair was hopping and I'm told that our alumni reception was the bougiest yet - lights, food, and so many beads!
- Thank you to Mark Boyle and his team for their amazing work on the conference app and to David Fryling for his leadership of the entire conference.
01/21/2023
The LSU Choral Symposium!
Earlier today, we had a fantastic workshop wherein we paired student composers from across Louisiana with graduate choral conductors from LSU for a full day of new music, coffee, pastries, new music, Lebanese food for lunch, and more new music, all while prospective LSU students were touring campus! A hearty congratulations goes to this year’s cohort of Composition Fellows for their evocative and imaginative work. As the Founder and Artistic Director of this project, I get a privileged look into not only the creative process of young composers, but I also get a unique perspective on who they are. What's their message? What do they want to say to the world? Most of the pieces fit into two camps: either they're clarion calls (warnings of danger and injustice) or they're statements of gratitude and peace. The texts could be original, biblical, or Shakespearean, but the core of the music reveals the same truth: that these young composers live with the cognitive dissonance of existential dread co-mingled with mindful appreciation - as if to say "I'm alarmed by climate change AND the stars are beautiful."
Stars may not be full restitution for all our ills, but they are a comfort.
12/02/2022
As they do every Fall, the LSU School of Music just completed their annual Candlelight Concert. While a major feature of the concert were the many mass number with nearly all the LSU choirs, including Michael Engelhardt's "And Suddenly" and Will Todd's "Three More Jazz Carols," the highlights for me were Margaret Bonds gorgeous "St. Francis Prayer" and the Louisiana premiere of my "Schneeflöckchen, Weißröckchen." Both were conducted by dear friends and colleagues of mine, Mary Grasso (MM '23) and Eunbae Jeon (DMA '23). Since my piece uses snow as a metaphor for reconciling childhood dreams with adult realities, the Union Theater projected snowflakes along the back wall, which was a nice touch. And what can I say about Eunbae? He deftly led the LSU A Cappella Choir through tenderness and heartbreak and back again. Sublime!
11/14/2022
The LSU School of Music just held their Undergraduate Composition Recital and it was wonderfully inventive and beautifully performed. There was a sensitive art song for mezzo soprano and string quartet that was giving off strong Baroque opera vibes, a philosophical tone poem for chamber orchestra that featured virtuosic meter changes, and startling piece of performance art with stream-of-consciousness poetry, a triangle, a call bell, and finger painting. It brought back so many memories of coordinating my own undergrad composition recital and how stressful it was. Major kudos to all the featured composers and to the organizers.
It was a wild evening. I love seeing how young minds interpret the world with music.
09/08/2022
This week, I heard the European premiere of A Voice is Heard in Ramah by Dr. Ethan Sperry and the Portland State Chamber Choir at the World Choral Expo in Lisbon Portugal. I can't overstate how big this was. Frieder Bernius, Founder and Conductor of the Kammerchor Stuttgart was in the audience; as was María Guinand, Jan Schumacher, Ki Adams, the leadership of the International Federation for Choral Music and conductors from all over the world. It was a glorious week of concerts and presentations. Hearing choirs from Canada, Namibia, Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany, Jordan, and the US share concerts stages is an unbelievably inspiring and rare occasion. If you ever have the opportunity to attend an IFCM event, especially the expo or symposium, do it! What glorious time this has been! I also had the joy of running into Dr. Edith Copley, Professor Emeritus from Northern Arizona University, and many others.
I've been fortunate to hear several different alto soloists on Ramah and they each bring something unique to the music. A soloist who pours themselves into the music is able to pull all sorts of delicious inflections from the score that even I didn't envision.
07/02/2022
Tonight was the night! Choral Arts Initiative premiered my piece Paradise as part of the PREMIERE|Project Festival. Thank you to Brandon Elliott, Connor Scott, Kyrstin Ohta, Lorraine Joy Welling and all of the stellar choral artists for a glorious week of music-making. Also a special thank you to Dominick DiOrio, Dale Trumbore, Derrick Skye and the wonderful cohort of composers! I learned so much from each of you!
It was an exhilarating concert, filled with as many styles as there were composer's on the program. I could talk at length about each one of them, but what was plainly evident was that each composer attempted to capture what it's like to be alive right now - full of grief and anxiety, scared for the future, but also courageous. I was honored to be among them.
06/02/2022
Prior to Dr. Ethan Sperry's arrival, the Portland State Chamber Choir was conducted by Dr. Bruce Browne and founded by Dr. David Wilson. Sadly, both Drs. Browne and Wilson passed away during the pandemic and the generations of musicians they left behind have been unable to properly honor them, until now. This past Sunday, the Chamber Choir and over 60 alumni joined together for a fitting tribute to their legacy and I was lucky enough to join them. But that wasn't the only reason I was there.
Ethan had invited me to join Chamber choir for their Friday rehearsal, ahead of any alumni, because he had a surprise up his sleeve. They sang my music. A Voice is Heard in Ramah was written in 2019 as a window into the anger and sorrow that comes from the cyclical nature of violence, especially against children. Finally hearing it live was eviscerating, and it was even more poignant given the shooting in Uvalde,Texas a few short days prior.
The Chamber Choir brilliantly performed my piece on the concert, and I learned that they would be taking it on tour to the World Choral Expo in Lisbon, Portugal! I also got to meet several other excellent PSU composers while I was there, including Justin Miller, Nicholas Nipp, and Henry Alexander. I'm honored to be on the program with you!
I can't thank Ethan and the members of Chamber Choir enough for bring my music to life and a special thank you to Della Simone for her powerful, heartrending solo.
05/08/2022
The choral department at Louisiana State University has been in transition this past year. After the retirement of Dr. John Dickson, it was announced that while they conducted a search for his successor, professor emeritus Dr. Kenneth Fulton would be returning and that Dr. Edith Copley (newly retired from Northern Arizona University) would join LSU faculty member Dr. Trey Davis in leading A Cappella Choir.
On May 6th, we had the final concert of the year under the baton of Dr. Copley and what a wonderful way to end 21-22! We sang Derrick Skye's A Vision Unfolding, Rosephanye Powell's To Sit and Dream, Ēriks Ešenvalds' Rivers of Light, along with several other pieces. LSU Chorale and Tiger Glee Club also performed and they sounded marvelous! A special shoutout to LSU violin professor Espen Lilleslåtten for his silky and resonant performance of Vaugh Williams' Serenade to Music with the combined choirs. I learned so much from watching these three masterful conductors this year!
AND NOW the search has concluded. The next Director of Choral Studies at LSU will be Dr. Alissa Rowe!
www.lsu.edu/cmda/music/blog/public/alissa-rowe.php
03/20/2022
Orson Rehearsed by Daron Hagen @ the LSU Turner-Fischer Center for Opera
Most of the time, I find operas to be wildly unbelievable - not simply because they have fantastical or ridiculous plots, or even because they’re often over-acted (or under-acted). It’s mainly because of character development. I find myself in the theatre thinking “Nobody who isn’t on mood elevating medication would think that, or say that, or do that.” No matter the setting, be it ancient Egypt or the 1960’s, the characters should still be human beings, not caricatures of human beings. This is why Orson Rehearsed was so refreshing. Though time became unhinged, it’s entirely believable that the last few seconds of consciousness are filled with a jumble of significant memories. We’ve all heard the adage about that, but here, the seemingly chaotic recollections form a narrative all their own.
This opera is well written for voices and the combination of the three leads sound nearly choral. The orchestration makes way for the voice, supporting the singers with a wide variety of colors. The three leads(in both casts) absolutely chewed the scenery. It was interesting to see which incarnations of Orson actually interreacted with each other. It’s seemed like the two Orsons from the past were comforting the Orson who currently is, but it was unclear whether the current Orson realized who was with him.
I adored the video component. It added a sense of desolation. The barrage of simple images and the countdowns ratcheted up the tension from scene to scene. Rather than simply being a novelty, it was integral to the both the plot and the overall aesthetic. Furthermore, Orson Welles was a film maker himself, so it made sense that he would be seeing replays in his dying moments. I told the composer afterwards that it was the longest and most glorious death scene I had ever witnessed. Far from dying of a broken heart or singing an aria after getting stabbed in the neck or being dragged to hell as in so many other operas, Orson Rehearsed was legitimately convincing.
This isn’t your grandma’s park and bark. This is the future.
www.lsu.edu/cmda/music/programs/opera/index.php
02/13/2022
Everywhere is Music.
This weekend, I had the distinct pleasure of experiencing the 11th anniversary of the Experimental Music and Digital Music program at Louisiana State University. What an exhilarating and fascinating celebration!
For a long time, I was under the grave misapprehension that much of electronic music sounds…well, electronic; as if it comes from a lab rather than a studio - clinical, calculating, and inhuman. Not only was a wrong, I was spectacularly wrong. The incomparable Pamela Z and the featured student composers created sound worlds that showcased the versatility of this artform magnificently. This music has an immediacy, a vulnerability that makes it more accessible and emotionally engaging than I would have thought. It was comforting and terrifying. It was eviscerating as only the best music can be.
I was amazed at the creativity. I heard a brand-new ukulele comforting an older ukulele in disrepair. I heard a flower bloom across the strings of a cello. I heard the sporadically canonic recitation of poetry. I saw someone swim. I felt someone breathe.
The most salient take away for me was that music is everywhere. Music is in the airport, on city streets, in darkened alleys. Music lives in between our words and between our moments of attention. One of Pamela Z’s most touching pieces was “Unknown Person” from Baggage Allowance. She saw music in the script we all hear every time we check our bags for a flight. How beautifully disorienting to be so moved by something we normally take for granted!
It was a fantastic series of concerts and presentations! Thank you and congratulations to Dr. Jesse Allison the EMDM program, and all their students. And thank you to Pamela Z for opening the eyes of my ears.
www.pamelaz.com/https://emdm.cct.lsu.edu/
"DAVID" Monogram by Rebecca Walters | info@ravenandrowan.com