In this section:
Meredith Brammeier
Meredith Brammeier’s Sonata for Horn and Piano has been selected as a finalist in the instrumental chamber music composition division of The American Prize national non-profit competitions in the performing arts. Her composition “Blow, Winds, Rage, Blow!” for mixed chorus and orchestra has been selected as a semi-finalist in the same organization’s choral composition division. Brammeier recently conducted Canzona Women’s Ensemble in several performances of her works, including the world premiere of “Refuge in the Storm” for the San Luis Obispo Responds benefit concert on Feb. 23, and “Elegy” for Canzona’s March 4 concert titled “The Singing Place.” The Traverse City Central High School Vocal Majority will premiere Brammeier’s setting of Lord Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty” for women’s chorus at the Michigan School Vocal Music Association State Solo and Ensemble Festival on April 21. If the group does well at the festival, it will sing it again at the Michigan Youth Arts Festival in May, on the campus of Western Michigan University. “She Walks in Beauty” will also be performed by Safonia, a women’s vocal ensemble in Arvada, Colorado, on May 6.
Jacalyn Kreitzer
Jacalyn Kreitzer will be the mezzo-soprano soloist with the Santa Rosa Symphony on Sergey Prokofiev’s “Field of the Dead,” the sixth movement from “Alexander Nevsky,” cantata for mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra, Op. 78. Bruno Ferrandis will conduct the three concerts April 7-9, in Weill Hall at the Green Music Center on the Sonoma State University campus. Kreitzer said, “It’s a hauntingly beautiful and somber work, describing the great Lake Chudskoye battle between the Russian and Teutonic armies in April 1242, determining the very existence of Russia.”
Christopher J. Woodruff
Christopher J. Woodruff conducted the Santa Barbara Unified School District High School Honor Band on Feb. 22. The band was comprised of over 50 of the finest young musicians from Dos Pueblos High School, San Marcos High School and Santa Barbara High School. The students worked together in rehearsal over two weeks to produce a program of music by Richard Saucedo, Robert Sheldon and E.E. Bagley.