External links
- Westminster Choir College of Westminster College of the Arts of Rider University
- James Jordan Biography, GIA Publications, Inc.
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James Jordan (born 1953) is an American writer, conductor, and professor at Westminster Choir College in Lawrenceville, New Jersey where he is currently a Senior Conductor and directs the select recording ensemble Williamson Voices and the former director of the sophomore choir, Schola Cantorum, and the freshman choir, Chapel Choir. Jordan received a Bachelor of Music (B.M.) degree from Susquehanna University, and both a Master of Music (M.M.) degree in choral conducting and a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in the psychology of music from Temple University and was a student of Elaine Brown, Wilhelm Ehmann and Frauke Haasemann. During the 2004–2005 academic year, he was a distinguished visiting professor of music education at West Chester University. He has also been a visiting professor, lecturer, and clinician at a number of conservatories and universities including the Curtis Institute.
Since the publishing of his book The Musicians Soul in 1999, Jordan has written over 60 books under the GIA Publications label. Jordan is the editor of the Evoking Sound Choral Series under the same label.
In 2013, the Williamson Voices under James Jordan, recorded and released a CD of James Whitbourn's Annelies, which was subsequently nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance that year.
Jordan is recognized in the musical community as one of the United States' leading conductors, writers and innovators in the field of choral music. His contributions include work and research concerning the use of Laban Movement Analysis in the teaching of conducting and movement to children, and for advocating the use of the case study in research for training teachers.
Since the inauguration of the Williamson Voices at Westminster Choir College, the group has recorded 10 disks, a recent recording of composer Ola Gjeilo's Sunrise Mass (with string players from the Philadelphia Orchestra and the MET Philly Orchestra) and other works by the composer released in spring 2019. Another disk by the group, titled "Aurora," was released in summer 2020.
Jordan is currently working to help revise the Music Education curriculum in the Chinese public school system along with co-running, with James Whitbourn, the Choral Institute at Oxford, a yearly summer choral program for conductors to workshop and study with the two professors and the Williamson voices.
Jordan's current choral focus is the study of choral improvisation suggested by the work of conductor Gary Graden.
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A choir is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the medieval era to the present, or popular music repertoire. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, hand, and facial gestures.
Morten Johannes Lauridsen is an American composer. A National Medal of Arts recipient (2007), he was composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1994 to 2001, and is the distinguished professor emeritus of composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, where he taught for fifty-two years until his retirement in 2019.
Eric Nelson is an American choral conductor, clinician and composer.
Westminster Choir College (WCC) is a historic conservatory of music currently operating on the campus of Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Rider's College of Arts and Sciences, the college under which the historic institution has been reorganized, consists of Westminster Choir College as well as three additional schools.
James Litton was an American musician, who directed the American Boychoir from 1985 to 2001, and is widely recognized as one of the leading choral conductors of the day.
Jeffrey Douma is the Director of the Yale Glee Club and the Marshall Bartholomew Professor in the Practice of Choral Music at the Yale School of Music. He is the founding Director of the Yale Choral Artists and serves as Artistic Director of the Yale International Choral Festival.
James Whitbourn is a British composer and conductor.
The Schulich School of Music is one of the constituent faculties of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 555, Rue Sherbrooke Ouest. The faculty was named after the benefactor Seymour Schulich.
Eugene Migliaro Corporon is an American conductor, known for his work with wind ensembles and is a scholar of wind / band music repertoire. He is co-editor of two literature catalogs, Wind Ensemble/Band Repertoire (1984) and Wind Ensemble Literature (1975), as well as all ten volumes of the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band Series. He also co-hosted the Inner Game of Music videotape.
Donald Nally is an American conductor, chorus master, and professor of conducting, specializing in chamber choirs, opera, and new music. He is conductor of the professional new-music choir, The Crossing, based in Philadelphia. He teaches graduate students at Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music.
James Anthony O'Donnell is a British organist, choral conductor and academic teacher who has been a professor of organ at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music in Connecticut, United States, since 2023.
The Michigan State University Children's Choir (MSUCC) is a Grammy Award-winning children's choir located in East Lansing, Michigan. In 2009, Kristin Zaryski was named director, succeeding the founder of the choir, Mary Alice Stollak. Following Ms. Zaryski, Kyle Zeuch was named Director. After 5 years, Kyle Zeuch departed for Lebanon Valley College. He was succeeded by current director Alison Geesey-Lagan. Most choristers in the choir come from the two other children's choirs in the program, the CMS Singers, and Preparatory Choir. The choir has performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City, Orchestra Hall in Detroit, Symphony Center in Chicago, and the Kennedy Center, in Washington D.C. In 2006, the choir won two Grammy Awards for their contributions to William Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Best Choral Performance and Best Classical Album.
The Westminster Williamson Voices is an ensemble that specializes in choral music. It is named for Westminster Choir College's founder, John Finley Williamson, who believed that choral music performed at the highest level should be accessible to all. The Choir is directed by conductor, pedagogue, and writer Dr.James Jordan
Annelies is a full-length choral work based on The Diary of Anne Frank. Annelies is the full first name of Anne Frank, now commonly referred to by her abbreviated forename, Anne. The music is by British composer James Whitbourn and the libretto is compiled from the diary by Melanie Challenger.
Robert Houston Bright was a composer of American music, known primarily for his choral works. The best-known of these is an original spiritual "I Hear a Voice A-Prayin'," but he wrote dozens of highly regarded pieces over the course of his career, including a number of instrumental compositions. Bright was, among his peers, well known and respected as a composer, choral director, and professor. He spent his entire academic career in the Music Department of West Texas State College.
George Alfred Lynn was an American composer, conductor, pianist, organist, singer, and music educator. A longtime member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, his compositional output encompasses more than 200 orchestral and choral pieces; many of which have been performed by major American symphony orchestras like the Denver Symphony, the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He taught on the music faculties of several prominent American colleges, notably conducting several university choirs. Throughout his life he was active as a conductor, organist, and pianist for various church and community choirs.
The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, is a mixed-voice choir whose primary function is to lead services in the chapel of Clare College, Cambridge. Since its founding in 1972, the choir has gained an international reputation as one of the leading university choral groups in the world.
The Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto is one of several professional faculties at the University of Toronto. The Faculty of Music is located at the Edward Johnson Building, just south of the Royal Ontario Museum and north of Queen's Park, west of Museum Subway Station. MacMillan Theatre and Walter Hall are located in the Edward Johnson Building. The Faculty of Music South building contains rehearsal rooms and offices, and the Upper Jazz Studio performance space is located at 90 Wellesley Street West. In January 2021, the Faculty announced Dr. Ellie Hisama as the new Dean starting July 1, 2021.
Jake Runestad is an American composer and conductor of classical music based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has composed music for a wide variety of musical genres and ensembles, but has achieved greatest acclaim for his work in the genres of opera, orchestral music, choral music, and wind ensemble. One of his principal collaborators for musical texts has been Todd Boss.
Daniel Troen Moe was an American choral conductor, composer, and pedagogue. He was director of choral organizations for the University of Iowa, professor of choral conducting at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, and founding music director of Key Chorale in Sarasota, Florida. He was a published composer and author. He was once hailed by The New Yorker music critic Andrew Porter as "that dean of choral conductors."
