This popular annual program by the Chamber Singers, University Chorale, University Singers, Treble Choir, Gospel Choir, and UW 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.
Masks are required in all indoor spaces on the UW campus, and patrons must show proof of vaccination or recent (within 72 hours of the performance) negative COVID-19 test for entry to live events at Meany Hall. Enhanced sanitation measures and touchless ticketing are among other safety measures in effect for 2021-22. Details of these policies and procedures are at: https://artsevents.washington.edu/covid-protocols
Order of Program
GOSPEL CHOIR
(It Will Get) Better by Hezekiah Walker (b. 1962)
Total Praise by Richard Smallwood (b. 1948)
UNIVERSITY SINGERS
Fix You by Chris Martin, Will Champion, Guy Berryman, and Jonny Buckland
Anyone by Justin Bieber (b. 1994) arr. Marshell Lombard
CHORAL COHORT ENSEMBLE
Only In Sleep by Ēriks Ešenvalds (b. 1977)
COLLEGIATE TREBLE CHOIR
Vidi Aquam by Kevin T. Padworski (b. 1987)
Sure on This Shining Night by Samuel Barber (1910–1981) arr. Jacob Naverud
GLEE CLUB
And So It Goes by Billy Joel (b. 1949) arr. Kirby Shaw
The Wellerman by New Zealand Traditional, arr. Roger Emerson
CHAMBER SINGERS
Noche de Paz by Franz Grüber (1787–1863), arr. César Alejandro Carrillo
Lao Rahal Soti by Samih Choukeir (b. 1957); arr. Shireen Abu Khader
Cells Planets by Erika Lloyd, arr. Vince Peterson
UNIVERSITY CHORALE
If Music Be the Food of Love by David Dickau (b. 1953)
Sing my Child by Sarah Quartel (b. 1982)
COMBINED CHOIRS FINALE
I Love You/What A Wonderful World arr. Craig Hella Johnson
Program Details
GOSPEL CHOIR
Phyllis Byrdwell, conductor
(It Will Get) Better by Hezekiah Walker (b. 1962)
Total Praise by Richard Smallwood (b. 1948)
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SOPRANO ALTO |
TENOR BASS |
MUSICIANS:
Phyllis M. Byrdwell, Director & Keyboard
Anthony Brown, Percussion
Tony Mobley, Bass Guitar
Ben Hagan, Keyboard
UNIVERSITY SINGERS
Fix You by Chris Martin, Will Champion, Guy Berryman, and Jonny Buckland,
as heard on the Coldplay album X&Y (2005), arr. George Chung
Tyler Todd Kimmel, conductor
Dominico Reyes, piano
Marshell Lombard, cajón
Featuring UW a cappella ensemble Furmata
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When you try your best, but you don't succeed Lights will guide you home |
And high up above, or down below Tears stream down your face
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Anyone by Justin Bieber (b. 1994) arr. Marshell Lombard
Marshell Lombard, conductor
Tyler Todd Kimmel, piano
Chloe Chapman and Thomas Beale, soloists
Dance with me under the diamonds
See me like breath in the cold
Sleep with me here in the silence
Come kiss me, silver and gold
You say that I won't lose you, but you can't predict the future
So just hold on like you will never let go
Yeah, if you ever move on without me
I need to make sure you know that
You are the only one I'll ever love (I gotta tell ya, gotta tell ya)
Yeah, you, if it's not you, it's not anyone (I gotta tell ya, gotta tell ya)
Lookin' back on my life, you're the only good I've ever done (Ever done)
Yeah, you, if it's not you, it's not anyone (Anyone), not anyone
Forever's not enough time to (Oh)
Love you the way that I want (Love you the way that I want)
'Cause every mornin', I'll find you (Oh)
I fear the day that I don't
You say that I won't lose you, but you can't predict the future
'Cause certain things are out of our control
Yeah, if you ever move on without me
I need to make sure you know that
You are the only one I'll ever love (Only one, I gotta tell ya, gotta tell ya)
Yeah, you, if it's not you, it's not anyone (I gotta tell ya, gotta tell ya)
Lookin' back on my life, you're the only good I've ever done (I've ever done)
Yeah, you, if it's not you, it's not anyone (It's not anyone, not anyone)
Oh-oh-oh-oh
If it's not you, it's not anyone
Oh-oh-oh, yeah, woah
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SOPRANO TENOR
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ALTO BASS
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CHORAL COHORT ENSEMBLE
Only In Sleep by Ēriks Ešenvalds (b. 1977)
Poetry by Sara Teasdale (1884–1933)
Timothy E. Little, conductor
Virginia Elizondo and Mallory McCollum, soloists
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Only in sleep I see their faces Only in sleep Time is forgotten— |
The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces
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COLLEGIATE TREBLE CHOIR
Vidi Aquam by Kevin T. Padworski (b. 1987)
Leah Wyman, conductor
Dominico Reyes, piano primo and Dhayoung Yoon, piano secondo
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Vidi aquam |
I saw water Flowing from the right side Of the temple, alleluia; And all they to whom that water came Were saved, And they shall say, Alleluia, alleluia. |
Sure on This Shining Night by Samuel Barber (1910–1981) arr. Jacob Naverud
Anjali Chudasama, conductor
Dhayoung Yoon, piano
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Sure on this shining night The late year lies down the north. |
Sure on this shining night
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SOPRANO 1 SOPRANO 2 |
ALTO 1 ALTO 2
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GLEE CLUB
And So It Goes by Billy Joel (b. 1949) arr. Kirby Shaw
Tyler Todd Kimmel, conductor
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In every heart, there is a room I spoke to you in cautious tones, And every time I’ve held a rose,
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But if my silence made you leave, And this is why my eyes are closed. So I would choose to be with you. And so it goes, and so it goes, |
The Wellerman by New Zealand Traditional, arr. Roger Emerson
Justin Birchell, conductor
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There once was a ship that put to sea. Soon may the wellerman come, She had not been two weeks from shore, Before the boat had hit the water, |
No line was cut, no whale was freed. For forty days or even more, As far as I’ve heard, the fight’s still on, |
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TENOR
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BASS Zaref James Nawaz Anderson Adrian Wong Cascante Theo Lin Ryan Mauery Armand Mousavi Tony Wang Paul Yun Xiangyu Kevin Zhou |
CHAMBER SINGERS
Noche de Paz by Franz Grüber (1787–1863), arr. César Alejandro Carrillo
“Silent Night” text by Joseph Mohr (1792–1848)
Tiffany Walker, conductor
| Noche de paz, Noche de amor, Todo duerme en derredor, Entre los astros que esparcen su luz Viene anunciando al Niño Jesús. Brilla la estrella de paz, Brilla la estrella de paz. |
This peaceful night, Lovely night, When everything sleeps all around, All the stars are spreading their light To announce Child Jesus’ birth. The star of peace is also shining, The star of peace is also shining. |
Lao Rahal Soti
Samih Choukeir (b. 1957)
arr. Shireen Abu Khader
Music and Text by Samih Choukeir, sung in Arabic
Tiffany Walker, soloist
If my voice departs, your throats (i.e. voices) will not
I look unto tomorrow and my heart is with you
If the singer goes (dies), the songs will remain
Bringing together the broken and suffering hearts
Cells Planets by Erika Lloyd, arr. Vince Peterson
Music and Text by Erika Lloyd (Little Grey Girlfriend)
Geoffrey Boers, conductor
Anjali Chudasama & Jessica Turner, soloists
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So far away, far away, The stars will open up and all will be Cells, planets, same thing. Bright electric lights on all the leaves |
I don’t know you, but I like you. Smallest is the biggest thing, Cells, planets, same thing. |
SOPRANO
Kaelyn Barnes, Everett, WA; Sophomore BA, Vocal Performance
Kate Connors, Kennewick, WA; Sophomore BA, Vocal Performance
Karen Dunstan, Ypsilanti, MI; 1st Year MM, Vocal Performance
Virginia Elizondo, Houston, TX; 2nd Year MM, Vocal Performance
Caitlin Hennessy, Chicago, IL; 1st Year MM, Vocal Performance
Mallory McCollum, Warminster, PA; 1st year MM, Vocal Performance
Shalini Pullarkat, La Cañada, CA; Junior BS, General Biology
Sarah Santos, Houston, TX; 2nd year MM, Vocal Performance
Jessica Turner, Tacoma, WA; Senior BM, Music Education-Choral Emphasis
ALTO
Cee Adamson, Washington, D.C.; 1st Year DMA, Vocal Performance
Sydney Belden, San Clemente, CA; Sophomore BM/BS, Music-Voice/Environmental Studies
Lily Campbell, Olympia, WA; Sophomore BA, Public Health-Global Health
Anjali Chudasama, Upland, CA; 1st Year MM, Choral Conducting
Heather Halverson, Woodinville, WA; Sophomore BM/BA,Vocal Performance/Communications
Anna Messenger, Olympia, WA; Junior BM, Music Education
Grace Selmann, Moses Lake; Sophomore BA, Comparative History of Ideas
Emily Vaughan, Mukilteo, WA; Senior BA/BA, Music-Voice/Cinema & Media Studies
Tiffany Walker, Chino Hills, CA; 4th year DMA, Choral Conducting
Leah Wyman, Greenville, SC; 2nd year MM, Choral Conducting
TENOR
Oliver Callahan, Anaheim, CA; 1st Year BM, Music Education-Choral Emphasis
Tyler Todd Kimmel, Seattle, WA; 2nd Year DMA, Choral Conducting
Timothy Little, Pineville, LA; 3rd year DMA, Choral Conducting
Marshell Lombard, Johannesburg, South Africa; 2nd year DMA, Choral Conducting
Alexander Nguyen, Tacoma, WA; Senior BM, Music Education-Choral Emphasis
Tri Nguyen, Everett, WA; Sophomore BS, Mechanical Engineering
John O'Kane, Seattle, WA; Senior BS, Industrial & Systems Engineering
Zach Rude, Brainerd, MN; 1st Year MM, Vocal Performance
Isaac Tian, San Diego, CA; 7th Year PhD, Computer Science & Engineering
BASS
Justin Birchell, Anchorage, AK; 1st Year DMA, Choral Conducting
Frank Goess, Albany, CA; 5th year BS, Aerospace Engineering
Mikey Prince, Kirkland; Senior BM/BA, Music Education/Gender Women & Sexuality Studies
Jonathan Rizzardi, Reading, PA; 4th year PhD, Theatre History & Theory
Dario Rojas, Seattle, WA; Sophomore BA, Environmental Science & Resource Management
Zack Shafer, Camas, WA; Junior BS, Computer Science
Alec Walter, Spokane, WA; Senior BS, Electrical Engineering
Daren Weissfisch, Ridgewood, NJ; 1st Year DMA, Orchestral Conducting
Trey Wheeler, Vancouver, WA; Sophomore BM, Music Education
UNIVERSITY CHORALE
Giselle Wyers, conductor
Serena Chin, piano
Marshell Lombard & Leah Wyman, assistant conductors
If Music Be the Food of Love by David Dickau (b. 1953)
| If music be the food of love, Sing on till I am fill'd with joy For then my list'ning soul you move To pleasures that can never cloy. Your eyes, your mien, your tongue declare That you are music ev'ry where. |
Pleasures invade both eye and ear, So fierce the transports are, they wound, And all my senses feasted are, Tho' yet the treat is only sound, Sure I must perish by your charms, Unless you save me in your arms. |
Sing my Child by Sarah Quartel (b. 1982)
Adrian Nguyen and Naomi-Hal Hoffman, soloists
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Sing for the promise in each new morning. Dance in the joy of the day unfolding. But when troubles come, |
Laugh in the cool and the fresh of the evening. But when troubles come, Sing my child. |
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SOPRANO TENOR |
ALTO BASS |
COMBINED CHOIRS FINALE
Geoffrey Boers & Giselle Wyers, conductor
Serena Chin, piano
I Love You/What A Wonderful World arr. Craig Hella Johnson
“I Love You” words and music by Larry Norman (1947–2008) and Randy Stonehill (b. 1952)
“What a Wonderful World” by Bob Thiele (1922–1996) and George David Weiss (1921–2010)
We can be together now and forever; I love you, I love you.
And when I’m prayin’, I hear him sayin’ “I love you, I love you.”
People all over the world, they’re opening up, they’re comin’ around
And they’re sayin’ I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.
I see skies of blue and clouds of white,
Bright, blessed day and dark, sacred night;
And I think to myself, “What a wonderful world.”
The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky,
Are also on the faces of the people going by.
I see friends shaking hands, saying “How do you do?”
They’re really saying, “I love you.”
People all over the world, they’re openin’ up, they’re comin’ around
And they’re sayin’ I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.
We can be together now and forever; I love you, I love you.
I hear babies cry, I watch them grow;
They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know,
And I think to myself, “What a wonderful world.”
Director Bios
Geoffrey Boers is Director of Choral Activities at the University of Washington in Seattle, a program widely recognized as forward thinking, unique, and of great distinction. Under his direction, the graduate choral program has developed a singular mission: to nurture the whole student as conductor-teacher-servant-leader-scholar. This vision has led the program to become one of the most vibrant and innovative in the country, attracting students from around the world interested in exploring the future of our art. Through his teaching he is exploring the evolution of conducting gesture and rehearsal pedagogy and their connection with the emerging neuroscience of mirror neurons, empathy, perception, learning, and personal transformation. His exploration has led to new thoughts about conducting and teaching with regard to breath, movement, artistry, personal awareness, and cultural development. Recently, his work has led to the mentoring of local choral cohorts of teachers and conductors who are interested in building professional communities of ongoing mentorship and musical development. He has developed such mentorship programs across the United States and Canada. In addition to these thoughts about mentorship he is actively working with other leaders in ACDA and NAfME to develop a more unified and useful system for development of musicianship, assessment, adjudication, and repertoire grading.
Geoffrey maintains an active conducting, teaching, workshop and clinic schedule; his recent engagements have included conducting concerts in Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, Meyerson Concert Hall in Dallas, New York’s Alice Tully and Avery Fischer Hall at Lincoln Center, the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, and Benaroya Hall in Seattle. In addition he has served as artist-in-residence in Toronto, Ontario, Mainz, Germany, as well as Seoul, Korea with the world-renown choir the Incheon City Chorale.
In addition to his position at the UW, Boers sings professionally and is the conductor of the Tacoma Symphony Chorus where he conducts both the choir and symphony players in a four-concert season.
Since his tenure at the University of Washington, the choral program has become a leader in promoting the performance, study and exchange of Baltic music in the United States. The choir has toured to the Baltic countries in 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2013. Geoffrey Boers was awarded a prestigious Royalty Research Grant in 2004 to create a Baltic Choral Library in collaboration with the UW Library as well as State and academic libraries in the Baltic. This collection of scores, manuscripts, vocal music, and writings is the first of its kind in the United States. This collection has promoted yearly exchanges with choirs and conductors from the Baltic area who travel each year to Seattle. Further, it has led to numerous UW choral students winning awards and scholarships to travel, study, and work in the Baltic countries.
Giselle Wyers (she/her/hers) is the Donald E. Petersen Endowed Professor of Choral Music at the University of Washington, where she conducts the award-winning University Chorale and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in choral conducting and music education. She serves as the newly appointed School of Music's designated Diversity Liaison. University Chorale’s latest CD, Chasing Daybreak, will begin streaming in January 2024 on Apple Music and Spotify. Their third CD, Resonant Streams (on the MSR Music Recordings label) was featured in a 2018 Gramophone magazine article. Wyers is the newly appointed director of Concord Chamber Choir, an adult community chorus within the Columbia Choirs community. Her professional project choir Solaris Vocal Ensemble, specializes in the performance of contemporary American choral literature. Their premiere album Floodsongs, on the Albany Music label, won the American Prize Ernst Bacon Memorial Award for the Performance of American Music in 2017-18.
As a guest conductor, Wyers has led high school honor choirs and all-state choruses in New York (Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center), Kansas, Wisconsin, Georgia, Missouri, Louisiana, Connecticut, Nebraska, Texas, Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Nevada and Vancouver, Canada. She has conducted semi-professional ensembles across the United States and in Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, and Sweden.
Wyers is a leading national figure in the application of Laban movement theory for conductors. She has served as guest lecturer in conducting at Sweden’s Örebro Universitet, European Festival of Church Music (Germany), Latvian Academy of Music, Eastman School of Music, Ithaca College, Westminster Choir College, University of Iowa, Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Portland State University.
Wyers’ choral works are published by Santa Barbara Music Publishing Company as part of the "Giselle Wyers Choral Series," as well as with MusicSpoke and Hildegard Publishing. Her works have been performed across the United States, South America, Canada, Australia, Cuba, and numerous European cities. She conducted her 30-minute choral cycle entitled And All Shall Be Well, in Carnegie Hall during May of 2022 with a consortium of NW-based choruses, and she will return with a newly composed choral/orchestral work in May of 2026. In 2021-22, she served as composer-in-residence for the Greater Seattle Choral Consortium's annual festivities celebrating the return of in-person singing (her appearance was sponsored by Consortio). Wyers is also committed to mentoring scholar-writers in the field, and served on the editorial board of ACDA’s Choral Journal for six years.
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.