Karen P. Thomas (born 1957), composer and conductor, is the Artistic Director and Conductor of Seattle Pro Musica and Director of Music at University Unitarian Church. [1] With Seattle Pro Musica she has produced six CD recordings, and has received the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence and the ASCAP-Chorus America Award for Adventuresome Programming of Contemporary Music. Ms. Thomas has guest conducted at international festivals in Europe and North America, and has served on the boards of the American Choral Director's Association for Washington State, the Conductor's Guild, the League-ISCM and the International Alliance for Women in Music. Ms. Thomas is a recipient of grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and ASCAP, among others. Her compositions have been awarded prizes in various competitions, and her commissions include works for the Grand Jubilee 2000 in Rome, the American Guild of Organists, and the Goodwill Arts Festival. Her compositions are regularly performed internationally, by groups such as The Hilliard Ensemble, and have been praised as "superb work of the utmost sensitivity and beauty." Her conducting has received critical praise for its "integrity and high purpose...delivered with taste and impeccable musicianship."
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.
Robert Lawson Shaw was an American conductor most famous for his work with his namesake Chorale, with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. He was known for drawing public attention to choral music through his wide-ranging influence and mentoring of younger conductors, the high standard of his recordings, his support for racial integration in his choruses, and his support for modern music, winning many awards throughout his career.
Bella Voce is a Chicago-based chamber chorus specializing in classical a cappella music. It has been called "Chicago's premier professional chamber choir."
David Sartor is an American composer and conductor of symphonic, chamber, and choral music. He is on the music faculty of Belmont University, and is the founder and music director of the Parthenon Chamber Orchestra.
The San Francisco Girls Chorus, established in 1978 by Elizabeth Appling and celebrating its 40th anniversary during the 2018-2019 Season, is a leading regional center for music education and performance for young women, ages 4–18, based in San Francisco. Each year, more than 300 singers from 45 Bay Area cities participate in SFGC's programs. The organization consists of a professional-level performance, recording, and touring ensemble and a six-level Chorus School training program. A leading voice on the Bay Area and national music scenes, the Chorus has produced award-winning concerts, recordings, and tours, empowered young women in music and other fields, enhanced and expanded the field of music for treble voices and set the international standard for the highest level of performance and education. The Chorus has been the recipient of 5 GRAMMY Awards, 4 Chorus America/ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, and the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence from Chorus America. SFGC's Chorus School has been described as "a model in the country for training girls' voices" by the California Arts Council.
Ronald Jack Nelson is an American composer of both classical and popular music and a retired music educator.
Seattle Pro Musica is an American choir, based in Seattle, Washington, performing under the direction of conductor and artistic director Karen P. Thomas. Seattle Pro Musica is widely considered to be one of the finest ensembles in the Pacific Northwest, and has received international recognition and acclaim for its CD recordings and live performances. Seattle Pro Musica has appeared as a featured ensemble on the NPR radio show Saint Paul Sunday, has performed by invitation for the World Festival of Women's Singing 2004, Festival Vancouver 2003 in Canada, the American Guild of Organists National Convention 2000 and the American Choral Directors Association Northwest Division Conventions 2000 and 2006, as well as numerous Northwest festivals. Seattle Pro Musica produced and hosted the American Masterpieces Choral Festival in 2007, under the auspices of the National Endowment for the Arts' American Masterpieces Choral Initiative.
Pacific Chorale, founded in 1968, is a professional chorus performing in Costa Mesa, California at the Renée and Henry Segerstom Concert Hall at Segerstrom Center for the Arts.
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.
Dalit Hadass Warshaw is a New York-based composer, pianist, thereminist. Previously on the composition and music theory faculty of Boston Conservatory, she currently serves on the composition faculty at Juilliard and CUNY-Brooklyn College. Her works have been performed by dozens of orchestral ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the Y Chamber Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony and the Albany Symphony Orchestra. In April 2006, her piece After the Victory for orchestra and chorus, was premiered by the Grand Rapids Symphony and the North American Choral Company. Her first recording, entitled "Invocations" was released by Albany Records in 2011. Her first piano concerto, Conjuring Tristan, was commissioned by the Grand Rapids Symphony in 2014. The work was inspired by Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, as well as by Thomas Mann's novella Tristan. The piece received its world premiere in January 2015, with Warshaw as the soloist.
The Esoterics is a vocal ensemble based in Seattle, Washington that performs contemporary a cappella choral settings of poetry, philosophy, and spiritual writings from around the world.
Eric Banks is a Seattle-based composer, choral conductor, and ethnomusicologist.
Bern Herbolsheimer was an American composer.
Sylvia Constantinidis is a Venezuelan-American pianist, composer, and conductor.
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.
Harold Rosenbaum is an American conductor and musician. He is the artistic director and conductor of the New York Virtuoso Singers and the Canticum Novum Singers. The New York Virtuoso Singers appear on 48 albums on labels including Naxos Records and Sony Classical. He has collaborated extensively with many ensembles including the New York Philharmonic, Juilliard Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, Bang on a Can, Mark Morris Dance Group, Orchestra of Saint Luke's, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Riverside Symphony, and Brooklyn Philharmonic.
Lansing McLoskey is an American composer of contemporary classical music. His Zealot Canticles: An Oratorio for Tolerance was a winner of the 61st Annual Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance by the ensemble The Crossing. McLoskey serves as a Professor of Music at the Frost School of Music in Miami, Florida. Among McLoskey's numerous commissions are those from Guerilla Opera, Copland House, The Fromm Foundation, The Barlow Endowment, N.E.A., The Crossing, ensemberlino vocale, New Spectrum Foundation, Ensemble Berlin PianoPercussion, Passepartout Duo, the Boston Choral Ensemble, and Kammerkoret NOVA.
Judith Clurman is a conductor and educator. She is the musical director for Essential Voices USA and The Singing Christmas Tree Float in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade(NBC). She teaches voice and ensemble voice at The Manhattan School of Music and edits two choral series for Hal Leonard Music. She is a member of ASCAP, ASCAP's Special Classification Committee, and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Timothy Kramer is an American composer whose music has earned him a Fulbright Scholarship, an National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a Guggenheim fellowship. Currently Professor Emeritus at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois, he served as the Edward Capps Professor of Humanities at Illinois College, and also served on the faculty of Trinity University as Professor of Music, and is a founding member of the Composers Alliance of San Antonio.