All-State Chorus and Orchestra

MUSIC ALL-STATE CHORUS AND ORCHESTRA The 64th All-State Chorus and Orchestra concert was held at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center in Sioux Falls on October 28—29, 2016. The statistics for the largest high school musical event in South Dakota were: Chorus Personnel ............................................................... 924 Schools represented in the Chorus .................................... 145 Orchestra Personnel ......................................................... 158 Schools represented in the Orchestra ................................. 28 Competition at the local level determines which students will attend All-State Chorus. Each school may send one or more quartets based on the enrollment of the school. The members of the All-State Orchestra were selected from the state- wide competitive auditions which were held at three audition centers. The auditions included performance and written tests. The number of All-State Orchestra students from each school is as follows: RC Stevens 52 SF Washington 5 Vermillion 2 Lutheran High Schl of SF 1 RC Central 23 Brookings 4 Chester 1 Mitchell 1 SF Lincoln 18 SF O’Gorman 4 Elk Point-Jefferson 1 RC Christian 1 SF Roosevelt 10 Brandon Valley 2 Elkton-Lake Benton 1 Sunshine Bible Academy 1 Aberdeen Central 8 Madison 2 Freeman Academy 1 Watertown 1 SF Christian 6 Parkston 2 Gayville-Volin 1 West Central 1 St. Thomas More 5 Spearfish 2 Gregory 1 Yankton 1 11 ALL-STATE ORCHESTRA GUEST CONDUCTOR Dr. Ruth Lin Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN Assistant Professor, Conductor of the Gustavus Sym- phony Orchestra in Music and Music - Instrumental Dr. Ruth Lin has been the Director of the Symphony Orchestra at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter Minnesota since 2010. The Symphony Orchestra is proud to be one of the finalists for the 2015 American Prize in the College/University division and it was featured at the 2016 Minnesota Music Educators Associa- tion conference. In addition to conducting the Sym- phony Orchestra, Dr. Lin also teaches classes in Conducting, Music Theory, and a First Term Seminar in Film Music. Dr. Lin was recently one of the ten Conducting Fellows at the Juilliard Conducting Workshop for Music Educators where she had the opportunity to work with Virginia Allen, Assistant Dean for Orchestral Studies at The Juilliard School, JoAnn Falletta, Music Director of the Buffalo Symphony Orchestra and Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and Eugene Corporon, conductor of the Wind Symphony and Regents Professor of Music at the University of Northern Texas Col- lege of Music. Dr. Lin performed as a Debut Conductor with the National Symphony Orchestra as part of the National Conducting Institute where she had the opportunity to work with Maes- tro Leonard Slatkin and led the National Symphony Orchestra in concert. She has served as the Assistant Conductor of the Waukegan Symphony Orchestra. She has also guest conducted the North Shore Chamber Orchestra, Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra, Northwestern University Philharmonia, Skokie Valley Symphony Orchestra, Central Iowa Sym- phony, and the Xiamen Philharmonic in Xiamen, China. Dr. Lin has conducted several world premiers, including "Faith and Perseverance," a commissioned work written specifically for the Gustavus Symphony Orchestra to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of the College by Dr. Chen Yi, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist composer. She was the conductor of the 2015 Wyoming All State Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Lin was born in Zhang Zhou, China. She immigrated to the United States with her family at the age of ten and began her musical studies on the piano at the age of five. She earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Northwestern University in Music Education and Music Tech- nology. While working on her undergraduate degree, she studied piano with Alan Chow and had the opportunity to perform Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No.1 with the Northwestern Univer- sity Symphony Orchestra as the Concerto Competition Winner. Still active as a pianist ad per- former, she was featured on the Dame Myra Hess Series on WFMT in March 2007, as part of the Lin-Kontorovitch piano duo and performs regularly in the Chicagoland area. Recordings of Dr. Lin's four-hand piano performances could be found on http://www.classicalconnect.com/#/ browse/performers/76. Dr. Lin completed her Masters and Doctoral Degrees at Northwestern University in orchestral conducting where she studied under Maestro Victor Yampolsky. Her other conducting teachers include Leonard Slatkin, David Effron, Fred Ockwell, Robert Hasty, and John Lynch. Dr. Lin's piano teachers include Alan Chow and Sylvia Wang. 12 ALL-STATE CHORUS GUEST CONDUCTOR Dr. Jerry Blackstone University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, Ann Arbor, MI GRAMMY® Award winning conductor Jerry Blackstone is director of Choirs and chair of the Conducting Department at the University of Michi- gan School of Music, Theatre & Dance where he conducts the Chamber Choir, teaches conducting at the graduate level, and administers a choral program of eleven choirs. In February 2006, he received two GRAMMY® Awards ("Best Choral Performance" and "Best Classical Album") as chorusmaster for the critically acclaimed Naxos recording of William Bolcom's monumental Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The recent Naxos recording of Milhaud's monumental L'Orestie d'Eschyle, on which Blackstone served as chorusmaster, was nominated for a 2015 GRAMMY® Award ("Best Opera Recording"). In 2006, the Chamber Choir performed by special invitation at the inaugural convention in San Antonio of the National Collegiate Choral Organization and, in 2003, the Chamber Choir presented three enthusiastically received performances in New York City at the Na- tional Convention of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). For significant contributions to choral music in the state of Michigan, he received the 2006 Maynard Klein Lifetime Achievement Award from the ACDA-Michigan chapter. Professor Blackstone is considered one of the country's leading conducting teachers, and his students have been first place award winners and finalists in both the graduate and undergraduate divisions of ACDA's biennial National Choral Conducting Awards competition. Blackstone has appeared as festival guest conductor and workshop presenter in thirty states as well as New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Recent appearances include festivals and conference presentations in Australia, New Zealand, China, New York, Florida, Illinois, New Hampshire, Mas- sachusetts, Utah, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Michigan. From 2003-2015, Dr. Blackstone served as conductor and music director of the University Musical Soci- ety (UMS) Choral Union, a large community/university chorus that frequently appears with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) and the Ann Arbor Symphony and presents yearly performances of Han- del's Messiah and other major works for chorus and orchestra. In March 2008, he conducted the UMS Choral Union and the DSO in a special performance of the Bach, St. Matthew Passion. Choirs prepared by Blackstone have appeared under the batons of Valery Gergiev, Neeme Järvi, Leonard Slatkin, John Adams, Helmuth Rilling, James Conlon, Nicholas McGegan, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Peter Ound- jian, and Yitzak Perlman. As conductor of the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club from 1988-2002, Professor Blackstone led the ensemble in performances at ACDA national and division conventions and on extensive concert tours throughout Australia, Eastern and Central Europe, Asia, South America, and the United States. Santa Barbara Music Publishing distributes Blackstone's acclaimed educational video, Working with Male Voices and publishes the Jerry Blackstone Choral Series, a set of choral publications that presents works by several composers in a variety of musical styles. Prior to coming to the University of Michigan in 1988, Professor Blackstone served on the music facul- ties of Phillips University in Oklahoma, Westmont College in California, and Huntington University in Indiana. He holds degrees from the University of Southern California, Indiana University, and Wheaton College. 13 SOUTH DAKOTA ALL-STATE CHORUS & ORCHESTRA A Chronological Listing of Location and Conductors (The All-State Chorus has been held since 1952. The All-State Orchestra has been held since 1953.) DATE CITY CHORUS CONDUCTOR ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR 1952 David Foltz 1953 Huron Robert McCowan Emmanuel Wishnow 1954 Huron Clayton Hathaway Harvey Waugh 1955 Aberdeen Dr. David Foltz Gilbert Waller 1956 Mitchell Weston Noble Richard Duncan 1957 Huron Warner Imig Bernard Goodman 1958 Aberdeen Leland B. Sateren Walter Charles 1959 Mitchell Harold A. Decker Walter Charles 1960 Huron Clayton Hathaway Harvey Waugh 1961 Huron Gerhard Schroth Marvin Rabin 1962 Huron Joseph Mussulman Leo Kucinski 1963 Aberdeen Weston Noble Howard Leyton-Brown 1964 Watertown Edward Anderson Marvin Rabin 1965 Sioux Falls Dr. Douglas McEwen Joseph Levine 1966 Watertown Dr. Robert Berglund Dr. James Neilson 1967 Huron Robert E. Page Dr. Leo Kucinski 1968 Aberdeen Dr. Elaine Brown Gerhard Paul Schroth 1969 Sioux Falls Dr. Lloyd Pfautsch Joseph DelliCarri 1970 Rapid City Dr. Daniel Moe Dr. Marvin Rabin 1971 Watertown Dr. Jester Hairston Dr. Samuel Adler 1972 Huron Don Craig Joseph DelliCarri 1973 Sioux Falls Dr. Joseph Mussulman David Holland 1974 Rapid City Dr. Leonard Van Camp A. Clyde Roller 1975 Watertown Dr. Don V. Moses Harry Lantz 1976 Huron Rodney Eichenberger Richard Anshutz 1977 Sioux Falls

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