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ONEONTA, N.Y. -- The Chamber Singers of the SUNY College at
Oneonta, conducted by
Dr.
Timothy Newton of the SUNY Oneonta
Music Department, have
been selected as one of 11 collegiate choirs to perform at Yale University
as part of the National Collegiate Choral Organization’s national conference
in November. The SUNY Oneonta Chamber Singers will form a double chorus with
the Indiana University-Pennsylvania Concert Choir in a performance conducted
by Grammy-Award-winning conductor Vance George, retired conductor of the San
Francisco Symphony Orchestra Chorus.
Vance George will visit SUNY Oneonta next month for three days of
intensive rehearsals with the Chamber Singers. The group will also be
accompanied in one work by Yale’s elite Collegium Musicum with soloists from
the noted Schola Cantorum vocal ensemble.
In addition to works by Brahms, Monteverdi, and Massenet, the SUNY
Oneonta Chamber Singers will sing the American premiere of a new piece by
Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström. Under Dr. Newton’s direction, they
will perform Jewish Storyteller and Panda Chants by American
composer Meredith Monk.
The SUNY Oneonta Chamber Singers received the invitation to appear at
Yale through a blind, recorded audition process from their previous two
years of live performances. Professor Newton submitted the recordings
knowing that the competition would be extremely high. When he learned that
the SUNY Oneonta group had been selected to perform, he described his
reaction as "ecstatic."
"When I learned that Vance George would be working directly with our
students here on our campus, I couldn’t believe how fortunate we are," added
Newton.
The SUNY Oneonta Chamber Singers are comprised of students from diverse
academic programs including art, biology, child and family studies,
communications, education, English, geology, music and music industry,
psychology, Spanish, and theatre.
They are conducted by Dr. Newton, who joined the SUNY Oneonta faculty in
2007. He taught previously at The American School in England, Dartmouth
College, the University of Illinois, the Moody Bible Institute, and Grinnell
College, where he held a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Choral Music. Dr.
Newton has served as a conducting apprentice at the Pittsburgh Opera, sung
with several symphonic choruses in London and in Europe, and received the
Julius Herford Prize for Outstanding Dissertation Research from the American
Choral Directors’ Association. He is also the Music Director of the Catskill
Choral Society in Oneonta.
More information about the SUNY Oneonta Chamber Singers and their
upcoming appearance at Yale is available from Dr. Newton at
(607) 436-2216.
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