University of Michigan
The premier choral ensemble at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, the Chamber Choir performs a wide variety of the most challenging repertoire, ranging from renaissance to contemporary music. This 47-voice ensemble is comprised of graduate and upper-level voice, choral music education, and conducting majors. In addition to its performances on campus, in July of 2014, the Chamber Choir presented concerts in Brisbane, Australia and throughout New Zealand, where they were the featured choir at the National Conference of the New Zealand Choral Federation held in Hastings. In the US, the Chamber Choir has appeared with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at Orchestra Hall under conductors Nicholas McGegan, David Lockington, and Helmuth Rilling and at National and Division conventions of the American Choral Directors Association. The Chamber Choir was honored to perform by special invitation at the 2006 inaugural conference of the National Collegiate Choral Organization, held in San Antonio, TX.
Jerry Blackstone - Conductor
Grammy® Award winner Jerry Blackstone is a leading conductor and highly respected conducting pedagogue. Now Emeritus Professor of Conducting, he served on the faculty of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance for thirty years where as Director of Choirs he led the graduate program in choral conducting and oversaw the University’s eleven choirs. In February 2006, he received two Grammy® Awards ("Best Choral Performance" and "Best Classical Album") as chorusmaster for the critically acclaimed Naxos recording of William Bolcom's Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The Naxos recording of Milhaud's monumental L'Orestie d'Eschyle, on which Blackstone served as chorusmaster, was nominated for a 2015 Grammy® Award ("Best Opera Recording"). Opera Magazine reviewer Tim Ashley wrote: “The real stars, though, are the University of Michigan’s multiple Choirs, who are faced with what must be some of the most taxing choral writing in the entire operatic repertory. Their singing has tremendous authority and beauty, while the shouts and screams of Choéphores are unnerving in the extreme. Their diction is good too: the occasions when we don’t hear the words are Milhaud’s responsibility, rather than theirs. It’s an extraordinary achievement, and utterly mesmerizing.”
The University of Michigan Chamber Choir, conducted by Dr. Blackstone, performed by special invitation at the inaugural conference in San Antonio of the National Collegiate Choral Organization (NCCO) and presented three enthusiastically received performances in New York City at the National Convention of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA). As conductor of the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club from 1988-2002, Professor Blackstone led the ensemble in performances at ACDA national and division conventions and on extensive concert tours throughout Australia, Eastern and Central Europe, Asia, South America, and the United States.
In 2017, NCCO presented him with its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Membership Award and, in 2006, for “significant contributions to choral music,” he received the ACDA-Michigan chapter’s Maynard Klein Lifetime Achievement Award. From 2003-2015, Dr. Blackstone served as conductor and music director of the University Musical Society (UMS) Choral Union, a large community/university chorus that frequently appears with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) and the Ann Arbor Symphony and presents yearly performances of Handel's Messiah and other major works for chorus and orchestra. Choirs prepared by Blackstone have appeared under the batons of Valery Gergiev, Neeme Järvi, Leonard Slatkin, Hans Graf, Michael Tilson Thomas, John Adams, Helmuth Rilling, James Conlon, Nicholas McGegan, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Peter Oundjian, and Yitzak Perlman. Professor Blackstone is considered one of the country's leading conducting teachers, and his students have been first place award winners and finalists in both the graduate and undergraduate divisions of ACDA's biennial National Choral Conducting competition. His 2016 rehearsal techniques DVD, Did You Hear That? (GIA Publications) deals with the conductor’s decision-making process during rehearsal. Santa Barbara Music Publishing distributes Blackstone's acclaimed educational DVD, Working with Male Voices and also publishes the Jerry Blackstone Choral Series.
Blackstone is an active guest conductor and workshop presenter and has appeared in forty-two states as well as New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Sicily. In the summer, he leads the Adult Choir Camp and the Choral Conducting Institute at the Interlochen Center for the Arts.
Prior to coming to the University of Michigan in 1988, Dr. Blackstone served on the music faculties of Phillips University in Oklahoma, Westmont College in California, and Huntington University in Indiana. He holds degrees from the University of Southern California, Indiana University, and Wheaton College.
Jonathan Ovalle - Percussion Ensemble Director
Jonathan Ovalle is a percussionist whose concerts and collaborations feature an array of musical aesthetics. As a performer, he is both a committed interpreter of contemporary art music as well as an inspired jazz/world percussionist and drummer. Ovalle has performed and presented masterclasses in North America, Europe, and Asia, and most recently served on the faculty of the International Percussion Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland in August 2017. He has been a featured artist at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, has served as a judge for the Thailand Drumline Competition and has also been a featured clinician at the Ohio, Tennessee, Quebec, and Emory University Days of Percussion.
Ovalle is currently an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater & Dance where he serves as a director of the University's famed percussion ensemble and is a faculty associate in the department of Latina/o studies. His research interests include: kinesiology/motor coordination; utilizing the body's natural physics to create greater efficiency and more depth of tone; snare drum performance; and pedagogy as a vehicle to developing universal technique on all percussion instruments, as well as memory organization and learning processes and their role in effective practicing. A sought-after educator, he is inspired by the unique puzzle each student presents and finds motivation in helping them overcome both technical and mental roadblocks-unlocking each students' full potential.
Tarik O'Regan - Composer
Tarik O’Regan (born: London, 1978) has written music for a wide variety of ensembles and organizations; these include the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Sydney Dance Company, Chamber Choir Ireland, BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, and the Royal Opera House, London.
The Phoenix, his opera about the life of Lorenzo Da Ponte, commissioned by Houston Grand Opera with a libretto by John Caird, will receive its premiere in April 2019, starring Thomas Hampson and Luca Pisaroni. Other highlights of the 2018/19 season include revival performances of two large-scale concert works, Solitude Trilogy and Mass Observation, by the Vancouver Chamber Choir and Houston Chamber Choir respectively.
O’Regan’s work, recognized with two GRAMMY® nominations and two British Composer Awards, has been recorded on 36 albums and is published exclusively by Novello & Co. Ltd, part of the Music Sales Group.
Scott VanOrnum
- Piano
Adrianna Tam, Allison Prost,
Megan Smania, Maya Ballester, Lucas Alvarado - Soloists