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Combined Choirs and University Symphony

Tuesday, April 22, 2014 - 7:30pm
$15 ($10 students/seniors). Notecard.
UW symphony

Giselle Wyers and David Alexander Rahbee conduct the University Symphony and combined Chamber Singers and University Chorale in a program of orchestral choral works, including Schubert: Offertorium, D.963 “Intende voci” and Durufé: Requiem, Op. 9. William Brooke, tenor, and Margaret Boeckman, mezzo-soprano, are the featured soloists.

 

PROGRAM DETAIL
University of Washington Symphony Orchestra, Washington Chamber Singers and University Chorale

Franz Schubert: Offertorium “Intende voci”, D.963
William Brooke, tenor
David Alexander Rahbee, conductor

Maurice Duruflé: Requiem, op. 9
Margaret Boeckman, mezzo-soprano
Giselle Wyers, conductor

CONDUCTOR BIO

David Alexander Rahbee

Conductor David Alexander Rahbee is a native of Boston. He studied conducting at the New England Conservatory, Université de Montréal, Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna and at the Pierre Monteux School. He also studied violin and composition at Indiana University. He further refined his artistic training by participating in master-classes with Kurt Masur, Sir Colin Davis, Jorma Panula, Zdeněk Mácal, Peter Eötvös, Zoltán Peskó, Helmut Rilling and Otto-Werner Mueller.

In September 2013, he will become conductor of the orchestra at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he will work closely with Seattle Symphony Music Director Ludovic Morlot to build a new program for talented young conductors.

He was awarded the American-Austrian Foundation "Herbert von Karajan Fellowship" for young conductors in Salzburg (2003), as well as fellowships from International "Richard-Wagner-Verband-Stipend" in Bayreuth, Germany (2005), the Acanthes Centre in Paris (2007) and the Atlantic Music Festival in the USA (2010).

At the Salzburg Festival in 2003 he was assistant conductor of the International Attergau Institute Orchestra, where he also worked artistically with members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and guest conductors including Bobby McFerrin.

He has appeared in concert with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, l'Orchestre de la Francophonie, the Dresden Hochschule Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica de Loja (Ecuador), the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, "Cool Opera" of Norway (members of the Stavanger Symphony), the Savaria Symphony Orchestra, Schönbrunner Schloss Orchestra (Vienna), the Gächinger Kantorei, the Bach-Kollegium Stuttgart, the Kammerphilharmonie Berlin-Brandenburg and the Divertimento Ensemble of Milan.

In the genre of contemporary musical theatre, Rahbee lead a fully staged production of Bruno Maderna's chamber opera Satyricon with the Divertimento Ensemble. He also lead this ensemble in the Italian premiere of Helmut Lachenmann's Mouvement – vor der Erstarrung.

The first of his several ground-breaking articles on Gustav Mahler, “Gustave Charpentier’s Louise and Mahler’s Sixth Symphony” appears in the spring 2013 edition of the music journal Sonus.

His arrangement of the Overture to Rossini's Barber of Seville for trombone quartet has been recorded and released on CD by Summit Music, played by the quartet known as Four of a Kind, four of the world’s greatest trombonists. This arrangement, along with many others, is published by Warwick Music, England.

 

Giselle Wyers

Giselle Wyers is Associate Professor of Choral Studies and Voice at the University of Washington, where she conducts the University Chorale and teaches courses in choral conducting and voice. University Chorale's debut CD, Climb, was nominated as a finalist for the American Prize for Choral Performance in 2012. University Chorale's 2008 performance of the Genesis Suite with Seattle Symphony was termed "brilliant" by the Seattle Times. Under her direction, University Chorale has enjoyed high profile performances for the President of Latvia as well as the Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden. The chorus tours regularly; recent trips have taken them to San Francisco as well as Estonia, Finland and Latvia.

As a guest conductor, Wyers has led high school honor choirs in New York (Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center), Georgia, Connecticut, Washington, Alaska, and Vancouver, Canada. She has been asked to guest conduct semi-professional ensembles across the United States and in Europe, including the Chamber Choir of Europe in 2011.  She conducted the ACDA NW Women's Honor Choir in 2012.

Wyers is a leading national figure in the application of Laban movement theory for conductors. Each summer she team-teaches choral conducting with James Jordan at Westminster Choir College.  She has published two substantive articles on the subject, both published through GIA Publications in the textbooks Music for Conducting Study (Jordan/Wyers) and The Conductor's Gesture: The Language of Movement (Jordan/Wyers).

As a composer, Wyers is currently preparing numerous choral works for premieres. Her works are published by Santa Barbara Music Publishing Company as part of the "Giselle Wyers Choral Series." This series will feature works by Wyers and champions the works of other emerging composers. Her work "The Waking" was recorded by Choral Arts Ensemble on the Gothic Records label.

Wyers' dedication to exposing audiences to the music of contemporary American composers has led to publications in various national journals. She is especially interested in exploring how modern composers use music as a form of peace-making and social justice. "Waging Peace through Intercultural Art in Kyr's Ah Nagasaki," appears as the cover article of the May 2008 Choral Journal, and discusses how the act of creating and premiering a musical work can serve as a gesture of reconciliation between cultures.

Wyers holds a D.M.A. in conducting from the University of Arizona, where she studied with Maurice Skones, and minored in historical musicology with John Brobeck. She earned a master's degree from Westminster Choir College, where she founded the Greater Princeton Youth Chamber Orchestra, and a bachelor's degree from UC Santa Cruz, where she founded the San Lorenzo Valley Community Chorus and Orchestra.

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