THE SYRACUSE CHILDREN’S CHORUS PRESENTS SOARING WITH SONG
featuring works by Stephen Paulus, Shawn Crouch, Liu Zhuang, and more!
SYRACUSE, NY – The Syracuse Children’s Chorus, under the direction of Founder and Artistic Director Barbara Marble Tagg welcomes composers Stephen Paulus and Shawn Crouch to Syracuse on May 1, 2010 for the premiere performance of new works commissioned by the Syracuse Children’s Chorus. Paulus’ piece, Hope is the Thing, featuring Deborah Coble, flute, and Ursula Kwasnicka, harp, will be the centerpiece of the Syracuse Children’s Chorus’ May 1, 2010 concert to be held at 7:30 pm at Hendricks Chapel on the Syracuse University Campus. Four premieres will be presented by Tagg in her last concert as Artistic Director of the ensemble currently in its 29th season. Miami, Florida based Composer Shawn Crouch will be in residence for the premiere of his piece composed specifically for this concert titled, Sun Tracks. Yimeng Mountain Ditty, to be sung in Chinese, was given to Tagg by former Syracuse University faculty member and current resident of Beijing, China, Liu Zhuang in honor of Tagg’s departure from the Chorus.
Additional works to be performed include those by composers J.S. Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, Libby Larsen, John Rutter, Melchior Franck, Leonard Enns, Jean Ashworth Bartle, Aaron Copland, and Lee Kesselman. Concert artists will feature Associate Director Deborah Cunningham, Assistant Director Marcia DeMartini, and accompanists Kaitlin Schneekloth, Michael Copps and Alice Muzquiz, a twenty-nine year member of the artistic staff. All alumni of the Syracuse Children’s Chorus are invited to participate in the final selection of the concert with the traditional singing of My Own Song written for the Chorus in 1983 by former SCC accompanist Crystal LaPoint.
About the Guest Composers
Composer Stephen Paulus has been hailed as “…a bright, fluent inventor with a ready lyric gift.” (The New Yorker) His prolific output of more than two hundred works is represented in many genres, including music for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles, solo voice, keyboard and opera. Paulus has been commissioned to write works for some of the world’s great solo artists, including Thomas Hampson, Hakan Hagegard, Doc Severinsen, William Preucil, Cynthia Phelps, Evelyn Lear, Leo Kottke and Robert McDuffie. His choral works have been performed and recorded by some of the most distinguished choruses in the United States, including the New York Concert Singers, Dale Warland Singers, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Robert Shaw Festival Singers, New Music Group of Philadelphia, Master Chorale of Washington DC, Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and dozens of other professional, community, church and college choirs. He is one of the most frequently recorded contemporary composers with his music being represented on over fifty recordings.
A recipient of both Guggenheim and NEA Fellowships, Paulus is also a strong advocate for the music of his colleagues. He is co-founder and a current Board Vice President of the highly esteemed American Composers Forum, the largest composer service organization in the world. Paulus also serves on the ASCAP Board of Directors as the Concert Music Representative, a post he has held since 1990.
Gramophone Magazine calls Shawn Crouch a “gifted young composer” and Anthony Tommisini of the New York Times describes Shawn Crouch’s work as music of “gnarling atonal energy”. Shawn has received awards from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP, Yale University, Meet the Composer and the Percussive Arts Society. An educator as well as a composer, Shawn Crouch has served on the music faculty at the Hunter College Campus School in New York City for the past seven years teaching students grades 7-12 where he successfully designed and implemented a computer music curriculum and instructor manual for grades 7-10 and built a strong choral program, beginning with 20 singers and over a seven-year period, growing to more than 80 singers and four choruses.
Liu Zhuang is a Chinese-born composer with strong ties to Syracuse University. She is a member of the Chinese Musicians’ Association and the Chinese Film Music Society and from 1989 to 1991 was Asian scholar-in-residence at Syracuse University on a Fulbright Fellowship. Liu’s music is technically accomplished and characterized by clarity of structure and poetic expression. Many of her compositions have been performed and recorded both in China and abroad.
Soaring with Song is supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Helen R. Brady Memorial Fund. The concert is also made possible, in part, through an Enitiative award. Enitiative (the Syracuse-Campus Community Entrepreneurship Initiative) is funded by a grant from Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, focusing on entrepreneurship in the arts, technology, and our neighborhoods.
Tickets: $15 advance/$18 at the door – $5 for Alumni of the Chorus
For ticket information, call 315.478.0582 or email SCCInfo@SyracuseChildrensChorus.org