Thomas Jennefelt, Composer

Born: April 24, 1954 in Huddinge, Sweden

Education: studied composition at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm with Gunnar Bucht and Arne Mellnäs

Awards and honors: in 2001 awarded the Royal Litteris et Artibus Medal, and in 2004 was appointed vice president of the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm; from 1994-2000, was a chairman of the Society of Swedish Composers

Notable compositions: choral works: Warning to the Rich, O Domine, Five Motets, Villarosa Sequences, The Hidden Fountain, Dichterliebe (I-X); instrumental music: Music by a mountain, Desiderio for orchestra; operas: Albert och Julia, The Jesters’ Hamlet, The Vessel, Sport & Leisure

Commissions: from a number of Swedish choirs as well as Vokalconsort Berlin, Bayerische Rundfunkchor, The Swingle Singers, Kammerchor Saarbrücken, Ex Cathedra in Birmingham, Microkosmos (Vierzon) and Musikhochschule Basel

Quote: “I curse text. I need text. Without text there is no music. I let the dramaturgy of the text be that of the music. I can’t find the form of a piece if I don’t have a text.” – Thomas Jennefelt

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Shawn Kirchner, composer/arranger

With the Chorale: 9 seasons as a member of the tenor section

Hometown: Cedar Falls, Iowa

Education: MA in Choral Conducting (University of Iowa), BA in Peace Studies (Manchester College)

Bluegrass/Country/Jazz: in 2006 Kirchner wrote and recorded Meet Me on the Mountain, a set of original songs inspired by the film Brokeback Mountain (available through CDBaby.com); also writes original jazz tunes performed regularly by the Shawn Kirchner Quartet and other area jazz artists

Christmas: in 2004 Kirchner was music director for Enter the Light of Life, a CBS Christmas Eve special which featured his choral and instrumental arrangements; a subsequent commission by Juniata College augmented this body of Christmas choral arrangements, many of which have been featured on LAMC Holiday Wonders concerts

Awards and Honors: Top Honors in University of Oregon's “Waging Peace Through Singing” choral composition contest for Rain Come Down, written following the Columbine school tragedy

Published by: Boosey & Hawkes and Santa Barbara Music Publishing; after the LAMC premiere of his new piece Heavenly Home: Three American Songs in May, 2010, Boosey & Hawkes elected to publish this work, along with two Christmas favorites heard on previous Holiday Wonders concerts: Silent Night and Brightest & Best

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Morten Lauridsen, composer

Born: February 27, 1943, in Colfax, WA

Began his association with the LAMC: in 1985 when Roger Wagner conducted his Mid-Winter Songs on Poems by Robert Graves at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion

Was the LAMC composer-in-residence: from 1994 until 2001

The LAMC has premiered his: O Magnum Mysterium, Lux Aeterna, Ave Maria, Voici le Soir (from Nocturnes)

The LAMC has recorded: Lux Aeterna, Les Chanson des Roses, Ave Maria, Mid-Winter Songs, and O Magnum Mysterium on the Grammy Award®- nominated album Lauridsen – Lux Aeterna (1998)

Preparing the next generation of composers: as Distinguished Professor of Composition at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music

Awards: in 2006, named an “American Choral Master” by the National Endowment for the Arts; in 2007, was awarded the National Medal of the Arts “for his composition of radiant choral works combining musical beauty, power, and spiritual depth”

International popularity: by the end of the 20th century, he eclipsed Randall Thompson as the most frequently performed American choral composer; his music has been recorded on over 200 CDs and has received several Grammy nominations

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Tarik O’Regan, composer

Born: 1978 in London

Education: undergraduate degree from Oxford University; postgraduate degrees from Cambridge University

Honors: his recording Threshold of Night (Harmonia Mundi) received two 2009 Grammy Award® nominations (including Best Classical Album); two-time British Composer Award winner; NEA Artistic Excellence grant; Fulbright Chester Schirmer Fellowship in Music Composition at Columbia University; Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard; Fellowship in the Creative Arts at Trinity College, University of Cambridge.

Appointments: positions at Trinity and Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and Yale University

His compositions have been performed by: BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, BBC Singers.

Recent and upcoming projects: Heart of Darkness, his opera based on Joseph Conrad’s novel, opens at the Royal Opera House Linbury Theatre in November 2011; 2010 marked the premiere of BBC Proms commission, Latent Manifest, by the Royal Philharmonic; broadcast of a self-penned documentary, Composing New York, which he presented for BBC Radio in 2010

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Eric Whitacre, composer

Born: January 2, 1970, in Reno, NV

Formal training: didn’t begin composing until college, when he sang in a choir for the first time; earned an MM from the Juilliard School, studying with John Corigliano

His recent musical: Paradise Lost, a cutting-edge work combining trance, ambient and techno electronica with choral, cinematic and operatic traditions, won both the ASCAP Harold Arlen award and the Richard Rodgers Award for most promising musical theater composer

Commissions: works for Chanticleer, the London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, Julian Lloyd Webber and the Philharmonia Orchestra, The King’s Singers, Conspirare

Considered by many to be: one of the most popular choral composers of the last decade for works such as Water Night, Cloudburst, Lux Aurumque, and Sleep

Other awards: his first recording, The Music of Eric Whitacre, was called one of the top 10 classical albums of 1997 by The American Record Guide; in 2001 he became the youngest recipient ever awarded the Raymond C. Brock commission by the American Choral Directors Association

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Paul Meier, organist

Official Position: Associate Organist of St. James Episcopal Church in Los Angeles

Education: has studied mainly with Patricia Churchley, Clyde Holloway and Cherry Rhodes; studied with Harald Vogel at the Norddeutschen Orgelakademie; holds degrees from Rice University and the University of Southern California, and is currently a doctoral candidate at USC

As a featured organist: with Pacific Symphony; also played services at the cathedrals of Canterbury, Wells, St. George’s Chapel in Windsor and Westminster Abbey

Awards: received the award for outstanding Master’s Degree graduate in organ performance from USC

Previous positions: organist of Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles; Christ the King Lutheran Church and the Bach Society in Houston

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