• CAtHEDAAL CLASsics~ • Dale Warland, Music Director and Conductor Jerry Rubino, Associate Conductor Carol Barnett, Composer in Residence Richard Dirlam - Soprano Saxophone with special guests - james sewell ballet James Sewell, Artistic Director 8 PM Saturday, April 1, 2000 The Basilica of Saint Mary Dale Warland, Music Director and Conductor The 1999-2000 season marks founder Dale Warland's twenty-eighth season as Music Director of the Dale Warland Singers. Warland has devoted his professional life to attaining the highest artistic level in choral singing. Through musicianship and attention to detail, he has built one of the finest choral ensembles in the United States. Under Warland's leadership, the Dale Warland Singers has thrilled choral music enthusiasts, not just in its Twin Cities home, but throughout North America and Europe. Warland's outstanding achievements in the field of choral music were recognized in June 1995, when he received the Michael Korn Founder's award at the annual Chorus America Conference in Seattle. This award, the highest honor for a choral conductor in the United States, has previously been given to outstanding choral conductors such as Robert Shaw, Margaret Hillis, and Roger Wagner. In addition to his active schedule as Music Director of the Dale Warland Singers, Warland is in demand as a guest conductor, lecturer, composer, and clinician. He has conducted the Swedish Radio Choir, the Danish Radio Choir, the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and Israel's Cameran Singers. He had also rehearsed and prepared choirs for performances of major works in collaboration with notable conductors including Robert Shaw, Edo de Waart, Leonard Slatkin, and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. At Kryzstzof Pederecki's request, he has prepared the St. Luke Passion for major choruses in Los Angeles, Caracas, Stuttgart, and the Oregon Bach Festival. In 1990, he also prepared Penderecki's Polish Requiem, the culminating event of the Second World Symposium on Choral Music held in Helsinki. Most recently, Warland has been featured as a guest conductor at Carnegie Hall, the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, the Zimriya Festival in Jerusalem, and with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. He has also served on the faculty of the All Japan Chorus League National Competition in Fukuoka, Japan, and has lectured on American music at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Warland is an active composer and a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). He has served as co-chair of both the choral and recording panels of the National Endowment for the Arts and has received major grants from the Ford Foundation, the Bush Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Before devoting himself full-time to the Singers, Warland maintained an academic career which mcluded 19 years as Director of Choral Music at Macalester College, St. Paul. He holds degrees from St. Olaf College, the University of Minnesota and the University of Southern California, and has received distinguished alumni awards from two of the institutions. Warland also holds an honorary doctorate from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. 3 Jerry Rubino, Associate Conductor Jerry Rubino has contributed many of his talents to the Dale Warland Singers during his 20-year relationship with the ensemble. His past and present efforts include singer, pianist and arranger for the Dale Warland Singers, and music coordinator of the Singers' education programs. Recently, he was appointed associate conductor of the Singers. Rubino is a versatile musician, giving solo and chamber performances, serving as organist and choir director at Spirit of Hope Methodist Church, and appearing with the Twin Cities-based New Music Theater Ensemble and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra He frequently serves as a choral clinician and adjudicator. Rubino began his professional studies as a cellist at the Curtis Institute of Music and went on to earn degrees in piano, music education and conducting from Temple University and the University of Minnesota. A published arranger with Jenson, Word and Hinshaw, he was named in International Who's Who in 1995. Carol Barnett, Composer in Residence Carol Barnett works in the Twin Cities as a free-lance composer, copyist, and flutist. She is a charter member of the American (formerly Minnesota) Composers Forum, and currently serves on its board of directors. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota where she studied with Dominick Argento, Paul Fetler, and Bernhard Weiser. The Women's Philharmonic, the Dale Warland Singers, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Westminster Abbey Choir, and the Ankor Children's Choir of Jerusalem, Israel, are among the ensembles which have performed her works. In 1991, she was a fellow at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, and since 1992 she has been Composer-In-Residence with the Dale Warlan Singers. james sewell ballet james sewell ballet creates and presents traditional and contemporary ballet, and performs annually in St. Paul, Rochester, and throughout the United States. The essential elements of the company's work are the choreography of Artistic Director James Sewell, performances by the dancers, the process of education, and the engagement of audiences and students. Since 1990, the dancers have visited 40 Minnesota communities, 24 states, and Bermuda twice. Since moving to Minnesota from New York, james sewell ballet has: worked with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Minnesota Opera, Children's Theatre Company, and Plymouth Music Series. Richard Dirlam - Soprano Saxophone Richard Dirlam earned First Prizes and Medals of Honor in Saxophone Performance and Chamber Music from the Conservatoire National de Musique de Bordeaux in France while in the studio of Jean-Marie Londeix. Dirlam has performed in Europe, North America, and Japan as a recitalist, soloist, in chamber ensembles and orchestras. He has performed and recorded with the Minnesota Orchestra and at the World Saxophone Congresses in Italy, Spain, and Germany For the next Congress in Montreal this summer, Dirlam will be premiering a new work by Minnesota composer Mark Engebretson for four baritone sax phones entitled The Bear. Recordings include the solo album/CD "Pure Saxophone" on the Innova label of the American Composers Forum. As well as teaching chemistry and physics, Mr. Dirlam is on the music faculty of College of Saint Benedict and St. John's University 4 The Dale Warland Singers Now in its twenty-eighth season of concerts, tours, radio broadcasts, and critically acclaimed recordings, the Dale Warland Singers is recognized as one of the world's foremost a capella choral ensembles The 40 voice professional choir is based in Minneapolis/St.Paul. The Dale Warland Singers has earned a reputation for its commitment to commissioning and performing new choral music. The ensemble has kept the choral genre fresh and alive by commissioning works from Dominick Argento, Stephen Paulus, Libby Larsen, Carol Barnett, Brent Michael Davids, Mary Ellen Childs, Augusta Read Thomas, janika Vandervelde, George Shearing, Peter Schickele, and Bernard Rands, among others. The Dale Warland Singers' New Choral Music Program solicits works from emerging composers, and through this program, over $100,000 in commissions has been awarded to forty-eight talented musicians. In 1992, the Dale Warland Singers became the first-ever recipient of the Margaret Hillis Achievement Award for Choral Excellence. The organization shares this honor only with Chanticleer and the Vancouver Chamber Choir among professional choirs. The group's extraordinary efforts on behalf of composers and new music resulted in ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming in 1992,1993,1996, and 1999. In addition to a subscription season in the Twin Cities, the Dale Warland Singers tours throughout the United States and abroad. In 1990, the ensemble traveled to Stockholm and Helsinki to represent North America at the Second World Symposium m Choral Music. During the 1999-2000 concert season, the group will tour the Southeastern United States. It has appeared on Garrison Keillor's original A Prairie Home Companion and is featured regularly on Public Radio International's Saint Paul Sunday. The annual Echoes of Christmas and Cathedral Classics broadcasts reach listeners nationwide. The First Art and Performance Today often feature the Dale Warland Singers. The Dale Warland Singers also performs in collaboration with other Twin Cities arts organizations such as the james sewell ballet, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Minnesota Orchestra. For many of these collaborations, the ensemble joins with volunteer singers from around the area to form the Warland Symphonic Chorus. The Symphonic Chorus has worked under the batons of Edo de Waart, Leonard Slatkin, Hugh Wolff, the late Robert Shaw, Bobby Mcferrin, Roger Norrington, and David Zinman. The Dale Warland Singers record primarily on the American Choral Catalog label, and the choir released a new recording on this label during the 1999-2000 season. Featuring Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and Benjamin Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb, it joins some 20 other Dale Warland Singers recordings including Blue Wheat, a collection of American folk music. The Seattle Times calls Blue Wheat, "the loveliest choral disc to emerge in a long time ... sung by what is probably America's best chorus." Also among the Singers' lauded releases is December Stillness, which BBC Music Magazine