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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For more information about the College, please call the Community Relations Office at (607) 436-2748 or send e-mail to Carol Blazina, Vice President for Community Relations.SUNY College at Oneonta - Ravine Parkway - Oneonta, NY 13820 - 607.436.3500
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