Ripon College singers to present world premiere Nov. 20

The Ripon College Chamber Singers will present a concert Friday, Nov. 20. The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Demmer Recital Hall, C.J. Rodman Center for the Arts. Admission is free, and all are welcome to attend.

The conductor is John C. Hughes, assistant professor of music and director of choral activities.

Selections on the program will include: “All That Hath Life and Breath Praise Ye the Lord!” by René Clausen, with McCayla Thoe ’16 of Hayfield, Minnesota, as soloist; “Sure on This Shining Night,” by Samuel Barber, with Maria Kaiser Dietrich on piano; “ ‘Suite’ de Lorcas,” by Einojuhani Rautavaara, with JaneMarie Erickson ’16 of Redgranite, Wisconsin, as soloist; pieces with a theme of romance, by Claudio Monteverdi, Jacques Arcadelt and Eric Whitacre; and selections by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Randall Thompson, a traditional isiXhosa folk song of South Africa, and a traditional Anhui folk song from China.

A special selection will be the world premiere of “Dancing is the Language of Sensation,” which Ripon College commissioned from composer-in-residence Dale Trumbore of Los Angeles, California. It is the setting of a poem by London Mosher ’16. Mosher’s poem was selected as the text of this commission through a campus-wide poetry contest.

Trumbore’s compositions — hailed by the New York Times for their “soaring melodies and beguiling harmonies” — have been performed widely in the United States and internationally by ensembles including ACME, the Boston New Music Initiative, The Los Angeles Master Chorale, Northwest Symphony Orchestra, The Singers-Minnesota Choral Artists and the USC Thornton Symphony.

Trumbore has been awarded and commissioned by the American Choral Directors Association, Center City Opera Theater, Choral Arts Initiative, The Esoterics, The Hollywood Master Chorale, Inscape Chamber Orchestra, The Maryland State Boychoir, The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay and VocalEssence, among others. Her compositions are published with Boosey & Hawkes and G. Schirmer, and she is composer-in-residence with Nova Vocal Ensemble in Glendale, California.

Her interest in the convergence of music and language leads her to collaborate frequently with leading contemporary poets, and her works for voice have been recorded by The Esoterics (Aetheria), The New York Virtuoso Singers (Toward Lasting Peace), Six Degree Singers (Six Degrees of Composers), and soprano Gillian Hollis (Snow White Turns Sixty). She is a regular contributor to Cantate Magazine and has written about composing for the Center for New Music, MusicSpoke and NewMusicBox.

The funding for the commissioning of “Dancing is the Language of Sensation” was through a Twenty for ’15 grant from the Office of the President, Zach P. Messitte. The funding for Trumbore’s residency was through the Lynn Post Northrop Fund.