This popular annual program by the Chamber Singers, University Chorale, University Singers, Women’s Choir, Gospel Choir, and UW Men’s Glee Club features seven conductors, six choral ensembles, five hundred singers, four graduate conductors, three choral faculty, two hours of great music, and one impressive grand finale.
GOSPEL CHOIR
Phyllis Byrdwell, conductor
PRETTY LITTLE BABY ............................................................................................................... Arranged Spiritual
FIX ME ................................................................................................................................. DR. RAYMOND WISE
OH WHAT A WONDERFUL CHILD / GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN .................... medley arranged by Phyllis Byrdwell soloist: Kalia Hobbs
INTERVAL
CHAMBER SINGERS
Dr. Geoffrey Boers, conductor
Leann Conley-Holcom, assistant conductor / Serena Chin, accompanist
THE HEART’S REFLECTION ...................................................................................................DANIEL ELDER
WOMEN’S CHOIR
Brenda J. Mohr, conductor
Miriam Anderson, assistant conductor / Hyun Su Seo, accompanist
STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING ...................................................VERA KISTLER
Roxanne Fairchild, flute
SILENT NIGHT ...................................................................................................arr. Jay Althouse
WINTER’S NIGHT ................................................................................................................FRODE FJELLHEIM
Sidney Hauser, soprano saxophone
JINGLE BELLS ................................................................................................................................arr. Reginald Unterseher
MEN’S GLEE CLUB
Jeffrey Larkin, Jeremy Morada & Ryan Mullaney, conductors
Elizabeth MacIsaac, accompanist
THE BOAR’S HEAD CAROL .........................................................ENGLISH SECULAR CAROL, arr. Alice Parker & Robert Shaw
O REGEM CAELI ................................................................................................................................. TOMAS LUIS DE VICTORIA
THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY .........................KATHERINE DAVIS, HENRY ONORATI & HARRY SIMEONE, arr. Jeremy Morada THE TWELVE DAYS AFTER CHRISTMAS .........................................................................................FREDERICK SILVER
UNIVERSITY CHORALE
Dr. Giselle Wyers, conductor
Brenda Mohr & Sarah Riskind, assistant conductors
Serena Chin, accompanist
THE MANY MOODS OF CHRISTMAS, SUITE III (EXCERPT)........................................................... arr. Robert Russell Bennett
O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL................................................................................................................arr. Mack Wilberg
UNIVERSITY SINGERS
Jeremy Morada & Meg Stohlmann, conductors
David Wimett, voice technician
Elizabeth MacIsaac, accompanist
BRIGHT MORNIN’ STAR.........................................................................................................................................arr. Wil Schmid THERE IS FAINT MUSIC...................................................................................................................................DAN FORREST BELIEVE (FROM THE POLAR EXPRESS)..............................................................................................................arr. Mark Hayers
CHAMBER SINGERS
Dr. Geoffrey Boers, conductor
Leann Conley-Holcom, assistant conductor
Serena Chin, accompanist
SELECTIONS FROM MESSIAH .......................................................................................................................... G.F. HANDEL
I. AND THE GLORY OF THE LORD
II. THERE WERE SHEPHERDS ABIDING IN THE FIELDS
Leann Conley-Holcom, Soprano
III. GLORY TO GOD
IV. HALLELUJAH
COMBINED CHOIRS
UNIVERSITY CHORALE, UNIVERSITY SINGERS, CHAMBER SINGERS, MEN’S GLEE & WOMEN’S CHOIR
Dr. Geoffrey Boers, Conductor
BETELEHEMU (NIGERIAN CHRISTMAS CAROL)...................VIA OLATUNJI & WENDELL WHALUM, arr. Barrington Brooks
CONDUCTOR BIOS
Geoffrey Boers, Chamber Singers
Geoffrey Boers is Director of Choral Activities at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he is the Mary K. Shepman Endowed Professor of Music. Under his direction, the choral program at the University of Washington has grown to include nearly twenty graduate choral conductors each year, as well as nine ensembles conducted by five faculty and many graduate students, with nearly 600 singers participating.
Geoffrey conducts the UW Chamber Singers, the university's premier ensemble of graduate and advanced singers. The Chamber Singers performs nationally and internationally, most recently having returned from Hungary for a concert tour. Last Spring, the choir performed Monteverdi's rarely heard masterpiece, 1610 Vespers. He also teaches graduate choral conducting and choral pedagogy, and serves as faculty advisor as part of the graduate choral curriculum. He is the recipient of the University of Washington's prestigious Royalty Research Foundation Grant, which allowed him to travel to the Baltic region and to establish the UW Baltic Choral Music Library, the first of its kind in the United States.
Geoffrey maintains an active conducting, teaching, workshop and clinic schedule. Recent engagements have taken him to Australia, mainland China, Thailand, Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall, and Kennedy Center, where he serves as Artistic Director for the Washington D.C. Choral Festival. He especially enjoys working with conductors and their choirs with focus on building communication through gesture and expressivity, and building community within the ensemble. Geoffrey is also exploring the idea spirare, or the connection between breath and spirit, in disciplines as far reaching as Yoga , Tai Chi and world faith systems. This study is leading to evolving thoughts of gesture as it relates to breath, evocation of sound, and touching the heart.
In addition to his position at the UW, Boers is the conductor of the Tacoma Symphony Chorus and will conduct the Tacoma Symphony in numerous performances this season.
Giselle Wyers, University Chorale
Giselle Wyers is the Donald E. Petersen Associate Professor of Choral Music 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,won third prize in the collegiate division of 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, Idaho, and Vancouver, Canada. She has conducted 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 and will direct the Alaska All-State Women’s Honor Choir and the Nebraska Wesleyan Honor Choir in the 2013-14 season.
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, and has led workshops on Laban across the United States, most recently at Iowa’s ACDA 2013 Summer Session. 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," and have been performed in the United States, Canada, Cuba, and across Europe. She has been commissioned by such choruses as Chamber Choir of Europe, A Capella Koor Cantabile of Netherlands, Choral Arts Ensemble, Dolce Canto Chamber Choir, Georgia Tech Chamber Singers, University of Tennessee Men’s Chorus, Cambridge Chamber Singers, and Cascadian Chorale.
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.
Phyllis Byrdwell, Gospel Choir
Phyllis Byrdwell, director of the UW Gospel Choir, is Minister of Music at Mount Zion Baptist Church of Seattle and also a music educator for Lakeside School. She has conducted several seminar workshops on Gospel music throughout Washington state and nationally, and served as a songleader for the Baptist World Alliance conference in Birmingham, England in 2005.
Byrdwell was inducted into the Washington Music Educators Association's Hall of Fame in 2002 and serves on the Seattle Symphony Board of Directors.
A School of Music alumna, she holds a bachelor's degree in music and bachelor's and master's degrees in music education.