Longwood music professor wins choral composition competition

Dr. Ryan Hebert, assistant professor of music and director of
choral activities at Longwood University, recently won the
Jefferson Choral Society’s inaugural Virginia Choral Composition
Competition.

Hebert’s winning work is a choral setting of E.E. Cummings’ poem
“i carry your heart with me.” The prize, which includes a $500 cash
award, will be presented at the premiere performance of the work by
the Jefferson Choral Society (JCS) on Feb. 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the
Joy and Lynch Christian Warehouse Theatre/Academy of Fine Arts in
Lynchburg, in the JCS’s “Poetry in Music” concert. The work will be
repeated the next day at 4 p.m. Hebert will attend both
performances.

“The contest rules stated that the composer had to use a secular
poem,” Hebert said. “I thought this poem was a well-written text
and setting it to music was easy, because the lyrics already sing.
I have done composition a little bit for 10 years. I don’t do a lot
of it. It’s something I do as a hobby. It’s fun to do because I
don’t have to do it.”