Joan Szymko (born 1957) is an American choral conductor, music educator and composer. She was born in Chicago and studied choral conducting and music education at the University of Illinois at Urbana, graduating in 1978. She settled in Seattle, Washington, and worked as a music teacher, composer and choral conductor. [1]
In 1993 Szymko took a position directing the Aurora Chorus in Portland, Oregon. She founded the women's choir Viriditas Vocal Ensemble in 1994. Szymko composed the music for the Broadway musical Do Jump! [2] and Jan Maher's play Most Dangerous Women. [3]
Szymko composes mainly for theater and choral ensembles. Selected works include:
Her music has been recorded and issued on CD, including:
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 52 years until his retirement in 2019.
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Kenneth L. Jennings was an American choral conductor and composer. He was the Harry R. and Thora Helseth Tosdal Professor of Music Emeritus and Director Emeritus of the St. Olaf Choir. He was a published arranger, composer, and choral music educator.
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Siegfried Strohbach was a German composer and conductor. He founded and directed choirs and the vocal ensemble Collegium Cantorum and is notable for the composition of choral music. He was a conductor of major theaters of Lower Saxony and a professor of the Musikhochschule Hannover as well as a composer.
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Chöre für Doris, after poems by Paul Verlaine, is a three-movement a cappella choral composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1950 and later given the number 1/11 in the composer's catalogue of works. The score is dedicated to the composer's first wife, Doris Stockhausen, née Andreae.
The Anna Crusis Feminist Choir is the longest-running feminist choir in the United States, founded in 1975 by Dr. Catherine Roma, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ANNA Crusis is known for its dedication to social justice, focusing on a wide range of repertoire including feminist and LGBTQ+ themes, celebrating the strength, resilience, and solidarity of marginalized communities.
Julian James Wachner is an American composer, conductor, and keyboardist. From 2011 to 2022, he served as the Director of Music and the Arts at Trinity Wall Street, conducting the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, the Trinity Baroque Orchestra, and NOVUS NY. Wachner recorded five albums with these ensembles, primarily for the Musica Omnia label. From 2008 to 2017, he served as the Director of The Washington Chorus. In March 2018, Wachner was named Artistic Director of the Grand Rapids Bach Festival, an affiliate of the Grand Rapids Symphony, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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.
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