Chorus America reflections

I didn’t get to go to Chorus America last week, but Frank Oteri did, and he blogged about it:

Directors of choruses are frequently composers themselves, and composers and new music—even when not front and center—has played a role in about every session of this conference I had ever attended. But ACF’s construction of an entire composer track in tandem with this year’s gathering kicked it up more than a notch. 

The opening concert, rather than featuring some new music, was completely devoted to new music almost exclusively by Minnesota-based composers, most of whom are alive and were present to hear the audience cheer after listening to their music. A consortium of youth choirs based throughout the state was led by Francisco J. Nuñez, artistic director of the Young People’s Chorus of New York City, in performances of his own music and a couple of other works. Then, in turn, eight professional Minnesota choruses took the stage to perform local repertoire. At the end, they all joined forces, a total of 500 voices, to premiere a new work by local hero Stephen Paulus.

But the most exciting event of the entire week, at least for me, occurred on the last day—a reading session and master class workshop of four new choral works led by Dale Warland.