2011 NEW ENGLAND MUSIC FESTIVAL CHORUS CONDUCTOR AND PROGRAM

Dr. Rollo Dilworth was recently appointed as Associate Professor of Choral Music Education at Temple University’s Boyer School of Music in Philadelphia, PA.  In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in choral music education, he serves as conductor for the University Chorale.  Prior to his appointment at Temple, Dilworth served as Director of Choral Activities and Music Education at North Park University in Chicago, IL for 13 years.  Dr. Dilworth holds degrees from Case Western Reserve University, University of Missouri-St. Louis, and Northwestern University. Dilworth has written and/or arranged over 150 choral works that are currently in print.  His choral compositions are a part of the Henry Leck Creating Artistry Choral Series with Hal Leonard Corporation and Colla Voce Music Company.  He has recently published pieces with the Santa Barbara Music Publishing Company as part of the Mary Alice Stollak Choral Series. Dilworth is a contributing author for the Essential Elements for Choir and the Experiencing Choral Music textbook series, both published by the Hal Leonard Corporation/Glencoe/McGraw-Hill Publications, and for Music Express! Teachers Magazine.  He authored a book of choral warm-ups for elementary and secondary choral ensembles entitled Choir Builders: Fundamental Vocal Techniques for General and Classroom Use. He frequently serves as a guest conductor and/or clinician for honors, festival and all-state choirs throughout the United States and abroad. Dilworth is an active member of the Music Educators National Conference (MENC), the National Association of Negro Musicians (NANM), the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), and Chorus America.  He is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), and currently serves on the Pennsylvania ACDA State board as Director of Student and Youth Activities.

Dilworth has released a recording entitled Good News, which features 12 of his choral compositions.  The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and IN UNISON® Chorus recently commissioned and premiered his choral-orchestral work entitled Freedom’s Plow, which is based on the text of a Langston Hughes poem that bears the same title.

**Accompanist: Eric Ouellette

THEME:  HEAVEN AND EARTH

Let Their Celestial Concerts All Unite* – Handel

At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners – Spencer

The Pasture* – Z. Randall Stroope

Gate, Gate – Brian Tate

How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place – Brahms

Roll, Jordan, Roll* – arr. Dilworth

Ain’a That Good News – arr. Dawson

2011 NEW ENGLAND MUSIC FESTIVAL BAND CONDUCTOR AND PROGRAM

James Patrick Miller is Assistant Professor and Director of Wind Studies at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, MA, where he conducts the Wind Ensemble and Symphony Band and teaches graduate and undergraduate conducting.

From 2002-2006 he served as Assistant Conductor of Wind Ensembles and conductor of the University Chorale at Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY, where he directed the Wind Symphony, Chorale and Low Brass Choir. His past faculty appointments also include Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY and Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN. Miller also serves as artistic advisor and founding member of the Sapphire Chamber Consort, a professional vocal and instrumental chamber ensemble based in Minneapolis, MN. Also active as a clinician and guest conductor, Miller has appeared throughout the Northeast and the Midwest with public school and festival ensembles.

In 2003 Miller received national recognition by winning the American Choral Directors Association National Conducting Prize at the graduate level. He has also been involved in the commissioning of more than 30 works over the last 10 years, and his ensemble’s performances have been noted by such composers as Shawn Allison, Karel Husa, Steven Stucky, Judith Weir and Dana Wilson. Miller’s mentors have included Steven Amundson, Craig Kirchhoff, Timothy Mahr, Stephen Peterson, Kathy Romey, Robert Scholz and Scott Tucker.

Dr. Miller holds the DMA in conducting from the University of Minnesota where he was named a College of Liberal Arts and School of Music Graduate Research Fellow for the summer of 2008, the MM degree in conducting from Ithaca College, and a BM in music education magna cum laude from St. Olaf College. Professor Miller has been affiliated professionally with the College Band Directors National Association, MENC, Massachusetts Instrumental and Choral Conductors Association, the American Choral Directors Association, and the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, and was elected into Pi Kappa Lambda in 2001. Miller resides in South Hadley, MA with his wife, conductor and soprano Heidi Johanna Miller and their two rambunctious cats.

PROGRAM

Dana Wilson – Shortcut Home

John Philip Sousa – The Thunderer

Ira Hearshen –  ‘After the Thunderer’ from “Symphony on Themes

of John Philip Sousa”

Yasuhide Ito – Glorioso

 


2011 NEW ENGLAND MUSIC FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR AND PROGRAM

John Eells received his B.A., with Honors, at York University in York, England, and his Graduate Diploma at the  Royal Academy of Music, London, England. John Eells was Director of Music at Miss Porter’s School for 25 years and is the founder and Music Director of the Farmington Valley Symphony Orchestra as well as the conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Community Orchestra. While at the Royal Academy of Music in London, he won that school’s conducting competition. John has been guest conductor with the Jacksonville, Spokane and Hartford Symphony Orchestras, the Manchester Symphony Orchestra and Choral, and the Meriden Symphony Orchestra. He is also regular conductor of the New Britain Opera Association. John has attended seminars and been coached by Gunther Schuller, Otto Werner Mueller, Andre Previn, Erich Leinsdorf, Riccardo Muti, Gustav Meier, Seiji Ozawa, and Leonard Bernstein.

PROGRAM

Emmanuel Chabrier  - España Rhapsody

Georges Bizet  -  ‘Danse Boehme’ from “Carmen”

Arturo Márquez – Danzón No. 2