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The Sorel Medallion
Second Annual Sorel Medallion in Choral Composition
2007-2008
The Sorel Medallion Finals Concert
October 29th, 2008
Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall
57th Street and 7th Avenue, New York, New York
Dennis Keene, Artistic Director and Conductor of Voices of Ascension
photo by Steve J. Sherman
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As a masterpiece in painting holds areas of shadow and variety of light, so did the 2008 Sorel Medallion in Choral Composition Finals Concert that was held at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall this October 29th. The evening was full of contrasts that left the capacity audience completely nourished in beauty. After the success of the 1st year's competition, a very high standard was required if they were to show an improvement. With the introduction of the Conductor's Request pieces the entire first half was designated to new works. As the audience was being entertained with Voices of Ascension's gorgeous interpretation of our favorite Bach Motets, the judges made their decision as to how the competition rankings would be awarded.
The Sorel Organization's Executive Director, Judy Cope, used the evening's award ceremony as an opportunity to announce its plans to award the Sorel Medallion in Composition as an annual event. For years to come the Sorel name will be synonymous with opportunity and excellence. To receive a Medallion with the Sorel name engraved upon it will represent a continuation of the musical genius of its patron Claudette Sorel. As opportunities for woman musicians open up, strength can be drawn from those that have come before and paved the way.
Judy Cope and the winners: Judith Cloud, Chiayu Hsu & Jenni Brandon
photo by Steve J. Sherman
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An underlying clue was revealed for future contestants during the concert. Dennis Keene, the Artistic Director and Conductor of Voices of Ascension, was given the last decision as to what pieces will be performed in the Finals concert. In the future, composers are encouraged to enter pieces that program well. Dr. Keene is quoted saying, "I don't know of any arts organizations that can afford to perform concerts that do not please the audience. New music can be avant garde and beautiful." To expand on Dr. Keene's thoughts The Sorel Organization offers this advice. All artistic masterpieces will have areas of shadow and variety of light. The journey itself will be drawn from levels of highs and low. Healthy competitions are a way to move forward. If you have not achieved the success you have hoped for, please use our competition to continue your journey.
The deadline for The 2009 Sorel Medallion in Piano Collaboration is January 2, 2009.
The deadline for The 2009 Sorel Medallion in Choral Composition is April 30, 2009.
THE WINNERS:
1st place - Chiayu Hsu - "Shui DiaoGe To"
for choir and four-handed piano accompaniment
Click here for bio
2nd place - Jenni Brandon - "At Night"
for a cappella choir
Click here for bio
3rd Place - Judith Cloud - "Mesa Songs"
for choir and Native American
flute, drum, and rain stick
Click here for bio
The Conductor's Requests for 2008 are:
Christine Donkin - "Aurora" for solo viola and choir
Click here for bio
Christina Whitten Thomas - "Take Peace" for a cappella choir
Click here for bio
Please click here to visit the Voices of Ascension website.
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Chiayu Hsu
Chiayu Hsu was born in Banciao, Taiwan, and received her Bachelor of Music from the Curtis Institute of Music, and Master's degree and Artist Diploma from Yale University. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Duke University. She has received a remarkable number of commissions. In February 2008, her Reverie and Pursuit received its premiere performance, commissioned and performed by Carol Jantsch, the tuba principal from the Philadelphia Orchestra. Last year, her Fantasy on Wang Bao Chuan, commissioned by Taiwan's Evergreen Symphony orchestra, was selected for the American Composers Orchestra's annual Underwood New Music reading and also received an honorable mention by the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute. Later, Chiayu was invited to collaborate with choreographer Keith Thompson from the danceTactics, for whom she composed Pellucid Tensions. Huan for solo harp was the winner of the Composition Contest for the 7th USA International Harp Competition in spring 2006 and was included in the repertoire for the harp competition. Chiayu was also invited to conduct a composer's forum in the competition and was interviewed for a documentary, which will be televised on PBS in 2008. In August 2006, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra premiered Hard Roads in Shu, which later received performances by the Detroit Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony. Her Among Gardens was released on pianist Natalie Zhu's Meyer Media Records CD, "Images." Chiayu has received numerous awards and honors. In 1999, her Dinkey Bird won the Maxfield Parrish composition contest and was the subject of a feature in Philadelphia Inquirer. Shui Diao Ge To, composed for the 2004 Milestones Festival, received a 2005 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer's Award. She has also received the first prize in the National Taiwan Academy of Art Composition Competition, in the Charlotte Civic Orchestra Composition Competition, in the Philip Slates Memorial Composition Contest, the Prism Quartet Student Commission Award, the Renée B. Fisher Foundation Composer Award, and the William Klenz Prize. She studied at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the Aspen Music Festival, Fontainebleau Schools, and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival. Her teachers have included Jennifer Higdon, David Loeb, Roberto Sierra, Ezra Laderman, Martin Bresnick, Anthony Kelley, Scott Lindroth, and Stephen Jaffe.
Jenni Brandon
Jenni Brandon (b. 1977), a composer, conductor, and mezzo-soprano, embraces writing for a large variety of ensembles and her music is often influenced by themes of nature. The Wildflower Trio for oboe, bassoon, and piano was commissioned in 2004 by the College of Fine Arts of the University of Texas at Austin to honor the life and environmental work of Lady Bird Johnson. This piece was recently recorded as a single on the Longhorn Music label with Luci Baines Johnson reading the poetry that inspired the piece. Other commissions include Vive la Liberté! for treble chorus, flute, percussion and piano to honor the life of the Marquis de Lafayette on his 250th birthday in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Her current commissions and projects include a new choral work to be premiered in May 2009 by Sistrum, a women's choir in Lansing, Michigan under the direction of Meredith Bowen. Ms. Brandon is also writing a one-woman opera for the soprano Malesha Jessie that tells the story of a young Black Indian woman during the early 1800's. The Vientos Trio, a reed trio in Los Angeles, has invited her to serve as composer-in-residence during the 2008-2009 season. Ms. Brandon has served as the music director and composer for a variety of musical theatre shows including writing original songs for new plays for adults and children as part of The Virginia Avenue Project in Santa Monica, California, helping children realize their potential through the arts. As a choral conductor, she is currently the music director of The Concert Singers, the oldest independent choir in Los Angeles. Active in producing concerts of new music, Ms. Brandon received a 2006 Subito grant from the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Composers Forum to produce a concert of new choral works by Los Angeles composers presented by The Concert Singers. Ms. Brandon's music has been performed around the world, and her pieces Five Frogs for woodwind quintet, The Dark Hills for SATB choir, oboe, and piano and Earth Grown Old for SATB choir and piano are published by Boosey & Hawkes. The Dark Hills appears on the Yale Glee Club's CD "Welcome The Time."
Judith Cloud
Composer Judith Cloud's gift for vocal writing originates out of her own rich experiences as an accomplished mezzo-soprano soloist. Highlights of her performing career include a performance of the Brahms Neueliebeslieder Waltzer with the acclaimed radio program Saint Paul Sunday Morning, as well as being the soloist for the American premiere performance of Michael Tippett's A Child of Our Time. Cloud first began composing in 1974, and her vast catalogue of works features art song, choral music, and instrumental chamber music, as well as a concerto for soprano saxophone and orchestra. Recordings of her works include the cantata Feet of Jesus, for soprano and baritone soloists, soprano saxophone, chorus and organ, with the BIS label on a CD entitled "Spirituals," released in 1997 by Stockholm's Saint Jacob's Chamber Choir and directed by Gary Graden. Ms. Cloud's recent projects include Neruda Songs II, composed for soprano Eileen Strempel and pianist Sylvie Beaudette, and Three Spells, commissioned by Nancy Hadden, conductor of the British women's ensemble, Psallite. Words from an Artist's Palette, commissioned by the Santa Fe Desert Chorale received its premiere on July 13, 2007. Three Impressions of Northern Arizona, for flute and piano was premiered in China in September of 2007 by flutist Emily MacKay and pianist Rita Borden. Dr. Cloud is currently Coordinator of Voice at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where she teaches studio voice and vocal pedagogy. Inspiring students with her teaching as well as her compositional talents, she was awarded "Teacher of the Year" for the College of Fine Arts in 2004.
Christine Donkin
Christine Donkin (M.Mus) is a Canadian composer of choral, orchestral, chamber, and pedagogical music. Her choral work Magnificat, published by the Treble Clef Music Press, has been performed by choirs across the continent, including Elektra Women's Choir of Vancouver, Women's Voices Chorus of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Amuse Singers of New York City. Her orchestral works have been performed in Canada and the United States, and shortly after completing her first degree, she enjoyed the opportunity of performing the solo at the premiere of her Piano Concerto with the Bombay Chamber Orchestra at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai, India. Ms. Donkin is also active in the field of music education. Six volumes of her pedagogical compositions for elementary and intermediate piano and violin have been published by the Frederick Harris Music Company; many of the compositions in these books are also included in the syllabus of graded examination repertoire compiled and edited by the Royal Conservatory of Music, as well as in the Alliance for Canadian New Music Projects' festival syllabus. These pieces are composed in a wide variety of styles, from light-hearted character pieces imitating jazz and film music to more introspective and personal miniatures. Although she has spent most of her life in northwest Alberta, Ms. Donkin currently lives in Ottawa, where she balances her interest in composition with her commitments as a private instructor, adjudicator, clinician, and guest speaker at educational events in Canadian towns and cities of all sizes.
Christina Whitten Thomas
As a winner in the 2007 Sorel Organization's composition competition, Christina Whitten Thomas had her work Choral de Bêtes premiered by Voices of Ascension at Zankel Hall in Carnegie Hall in October 2007. Ms. Whitten Thomas's music has been described as "intimate," "uplifting," and "an intoxicating blend of the sensual and the spiritual." Having grown up in New England, her music is greatly influenced by the natural beauty and serenity of the Northeast. She also draws from the excitement of city life and the vibrant arts community of her current home in Los Angeles, California. Reflective of her life experiences, her compositions are an intricate fusion of the traditional and innovative, of the contemplative and dynamic. Her works have been performed or commissioned by such organizations as the Middlebury College Orchestra and Chamber Singers, The Middlebury College Community Chorus, the USC Thornton Symphony, the USC Chamber Singers, the Ann Arbor Cantata Singers, the First Baptist Church of Worcester, Massachusetts, Vanguard Voices and Voices of Ascension. In 2008, Ms. Whitten Thomas was awarded an honorable mention for her piece Snow Change as part of the Vanguard Premieres competition. Earlier in 2007, her choral work Take Peace was featured as part of a memorial mass for Pope John Paul II at the Los Angeles Cathedral. She was a finalist for the 2006 National Association of Teachers of Singing Art Song Composition Award, winner of the 2005 USC New Music for Orchestra competition, and the recipient of a commission in 2006 for choir and organ by the First Baptist Church of Worcester to launch their annual competition for new sacred music. An activist in the promotion of new works by emerging composers, she frequently hosts salon performances featuring works by local composers. Most recently her new guitar suite Impressions of a Day was premiered by Elizabeth Busch at the West Side Salon (December 2007). In May of 2008, her new song cycle In the Garret, with text by Louisa May Alcott, was premiered by soprano Rebecca Sjöwall at UCLA.
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This website and all content copyright 2006-2008 The Sorel Organization • Site Design: Canfield Design Studios, Inc.
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