Richard Allain

Richard Allain's works encompass a wide range of styles, including music theatre, sacred choral music, song-writing and works for children. He has been commissioned to write music for BBC Radio 2, 3 and 4. He has worked with many of the country's leading choirs and musicians (including BBC Singers, King's College, Cambridge, St Paul's Cathedral, Commotio, The Bach Choir, etc). His music has appeared at the BBC Proms, and his work is regularly performed and broadcast within the UK and in countries throughout the world. Ubi Caritas has been a core item on Classic FM for nearly a decade. Cana's Guest was selected to form part of The Queen's Choir Book, a collection of contemporary choral music published to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Choral music is at the heart of his output; he was, for many years, Composer in Association for the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain.

Deeply committed to music education, together with his brother Thomas, Allain has written several cantatas for young voices. One such collaboration, Jake and the Right Genie was commissioned by the Surrey Millennium Youth Festival. It has since been performed by over 10,000 school children and, in 2005, an entire Yorkshire village!

Ysaye Barnwell

Ysaye M. Barnwell was born in New York City and has lived in Washington, D.C., for over 40 years. Her life experiences have taken her down three major paths. She began in music at the age of 2, studying violin for 15 years with her father and majoring in music in high school. She sang in a choir while in junior high school and then in college. In 1976, she founded the Jubilee Singers at All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C. It was, there in 1979, that Bernice Johnson Reagon witnessed her as a singer and a Sign Language interpreter and invited her to audition for Sweet Honey In The Rock.

Barnwell is also a Speech Pathologist with the Bachelors, Masters (SUNY, Geneseo 1963-68) and Ph.D. (University of Pittsburgh 1975) degrees and was a professor in the College of Dentistry for over a decade. In 1981 she completed post-doctoral work and earned the Master of Science in Public Health

Andy Beck

Andy Beck is the Director of Choral Publications at Alfred Music. A prolific composer and arranger, he has over 450 popular choral works, vocal resources, and children's musicals currently in print, including the highly regarded method books Sing at First Sight, Foundations in Choral Sight Singing and Vocalize! 45 Vocal Warm-Ups That Teach Technique. A quick search on YouTube will confirm that Andy's music is performed by singers worldwide.

Mr. Beck is in demand as a guest conductor, choreographer, adjudicator, and clinician for music educators and students throughout the United States and beyond. In recent years, he has been a commissioned composer and/or guest conductor for honor choirs of all ages, including all-state groups throughout the Southeast.

A fine tenor, Andy enjoys performing in and directing musical theatre, singing with the North Carolina Master Chorale Chamber Choir, and has been an Alfred Music studio singer since 1992.

With a Bachelor's degree in Music Education from Ithaca College and a Masters degree in Music Education from Northwest Missouri State University, Mr. Beck is fully committed to arts education, music literacy, and choral artistry. This passion is evident, not only in his own writing, but also in the high-quality publications available through the catalog he cultivates for Alfred Music.

Ken Berg

For 28 years Ken served as the Director of Choirs and Fine Arts Chairman at John Carroll Catholic High School in Birmingham. The choirs at John Carroll consistently received highest ratings in district, state and national festivals under his leadership.

After retiring from teaching high school in 2005, Ken served for six years as the full-time Music Minister and Composer in Residence at Mountain Brook Baptist Church, also in Birmingham. As of the summer of 2011, after serving as the part-time Music Director for 33 years, Ken now serves as the first full-time Music Director and Resident Composer for the Birmingham Boys Choir - ken@birminghamboyschoir.com. Under his leadership the Choir has toured extensively throughout Costa Rica, Europe, Japan, and Canada and has sung for OAKE, MENC and ACDA State, Division and National conventions.

Abbie Betinis

Reviewed as "most audacious... edgy and thrilling," the music of Abbie Betinis (b. 1980) has been heard in some of the finest concert halls in the United States, and is enjoying growing acclaim abroad. Betinis has been commissioned by more than 40 music organizations including the American Suzuki Foundation, Cantus, Dale Warland Singers, and The Schubert Club. She holds degrees from St. Olaf College, the University of Minnesota, and has done post-graduate work at the European American Musical Alliance in Paris, France, where she studied harmony and counterpoint in the tradition of Nadia Boulanger. A McKnight Artist Fellow, Betinis has also received grants and awards from the American Composers Forum, ASCAP, the Jerome Foundation, and the Minnesota Music Educators Association. She has been Composer-in-Residence for The Schubert Club in Saint Paul since 2005, and has also held residencies with The Singers-Minnesota Choral Artists and The Rose Ensemble. A three-time cancer survivor, Abbie lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

William Bolcom

National Medal of Arts, Pulitzer Prize, and Grammy Award-winner William Bolcom is an American composer of chamber, operatic, vocal, choral, cabaret, ragtime, and symphonic music.

He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan's School of Music in 1973, was named the Ross Lee Finney Distinguished University Professor of Composition in 1994, and retired in 2008 after 35 years. Bolcom won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1988 for 12 New Etudes for Piano, and his setting of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience on the Naxos label won four Grammy Awards in 2005.

As a pianist Bolcom has performed and recorded his own work frequently in collaboration with his wife and musical partner, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris. Cabaret songs, show tunes, and American popular songs of the 20th century have been their primary specialties in both concerts and recordings. Their 25th album, "Autumn Leaves," was released in 2015.

David L. Brunner

David L. Brunner is acclaimed as one today's most active and versatile conductors and composers. His wide and varied expertise embraces all ages in professional, university, public school, community, church and children's choruses. Dr. Brunner is Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at the University of Central Florida, where he conducts the University Chorus and Chamber Singers, teaches courses in conducting, and coaches composition students.

Gavin Bryars

Richard Gavin Bryars is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in (or has produced works in) many varied styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism experimental music, avant-garde, neoclassicism, and ambient.

Born in Goole, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, Bryars initially studied philosophy at Sheffield University before studying music for three years.

The first musical work for which is he remembered was his role as bassist in the trio Joseph Holbrooke, alongside guitarist Derek Bailey and drummer Tony Oxley. The trio began by playing relatively traditional jazz before moving into free improvisation. However, Bryars became dissatified with this when he saw a young bassist (later revealed to be Johnny Dyani) play in a manner which seemed to him to be artificial, and he became interested in composition instead.

Alan Bullard

Alan Bullard's music is widely performed in Great Britain and many other countries, broadcast on television and radio, and appears on a number of CDs. The variety of commissions that he has undertaken - including music for a number of professional soloists and ensembles, many amateur choral societies and children's choirs, a semi-professional chamber orchestra, wind band and recorder festivals, a professional chamber choir, a festival for massed school choirs and instrumentalists, the anniversary celebrations of a church and a school, music for examination syllabuses and educational albums, and for a television programme about the Suffolk landscape - are some indication of the wide appeal of the music of this versatile composer to many different types of musicians and audiences.

Javier Busto

Busto graduated as a medical doctor from Valladolid University. In 1995 he created and founded the women's choir Kanta Cantemus Korua. Known internationally as a composer of music and as a choral conductor, he has presented his compositions at the Fourth World Symposium on Choral Music in Sydney, Australia in 1996, and was guest conductor of the Tokyo Cantat in 2000. His choirs have won first place awards in France, Italy, Austria, and Germany. Busto has served on the jury of composition and choral competitions in Spain, France, Italy and Japan.

Stephen Chatman

Stephen Chatman C.M., D.M.A., one of Canada's most prominent composers, is Professor of Composition at the University of British Columbia School of Music. He has received many commissions and composition awards, including 2005, 2006 and 2010 Western Canadian Music Awards "Classical Composition of the Year", 2010 and 2012 SOCAN Jan V. Matejcek New Classical Music Award, three BMI Awards (New York), multiple JUNO nominations, Dorothy Somerset Award, Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the 2001 BBC Masterprize short-list. In 2012, Dr. Chatman was appointed to the Order of Canada.

More than 100 of his works, published by E.C. Schirmer, Oxford University Press, Boosey & Hawkes, earthsongs, Frederick Harris, Dorn, Berandol, and T. Presser, have sold 500,000 printed copies.

Bob Chilcott

Described by the Observer newspaper as "a contemporary hero of British choral music", Bob Chilcott has always been immersed in the choral tradition of his country. He sang as a chorister and choral scholar at King's College, Cambridge, and after singing professionally in London and also as a member of the vocal group the King's Singers for 12 years, he became a full-time composer in 1997. He has embraced his career with energy and commitment, not only producing a large catalogue of music for all types of choirs, but also working with singers and choirs in more than 30 countries.

Pepper Choplin

Pepper Choplin is a full-time composer, conductor and humorist. He has gained a reputation as one of the most creative writers in church music today. With a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, he went on to earn a Master of Music degree in composition from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Currently, he attends Greystone Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he served as music minister for twenty-two years. There in his hometown, Choplin has conducted several mass performances of his Easter and Christmas cantatas in Meymandi Auditorium (home to the NC Symphony) with over two hundred voices and full orchestra.

David Conte

One of the last students of legendary teacher Nadia Boulanger, David Conte has been Professor of Composition and Conductor of the Conservatory Chorus at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music since 1985, and Composer-in-Residence for the San Francisco theater company Thick Description since 1990. He is the composer of over seventy published works, including five operas, a musical, works for chorus, solo voice, orchestra, chamber music, organ, piano, guitar, and harp. With composer Todd Boekelheide, Conte co-wrote the film score for the documentary Ballets Russes, shown at the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals in 2005, (now available on DVD) and composed the music for the PBS documentary, Orozco: Man of Fire in 2006, shown on the American Masters Series in the fall of 2007.

Mary Donnelly

Mary was born and raised in Reno, Nevada. She earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Nevada, Reno with a double major in English and French. While still a college student, she helped to organize two children's choruses and enjoyed it so much that she decided to go back to school and become certified to teach music. She later received a Master's Degree in Education from Lesley College in Cambridge Massachusetts. The courses emphasized integrating the arts in the classroom.

Mary is currently retired, having taught general music and choir in elementary and middle school for thirty years in the Washoe County School District (Reno, Nevada). She is a member of ACDA, NEA, and ASCAP.

Matthew Emery

Matthew Emery is a Canadian composer who "writes with an honesty which enchants" (Vancouver Sun). His music has been performed across North America (Canada, USA), Europe (England, Sweden, Estonia, Russia, Spain, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland), Asia and Oceania (China, New Zealand, South Korea) and has been heard on national television and radio both in Canada and USA. Matthew is the recipient of the ACDA Raymond W. Brock prize (USA) and the ACCC Diane Loomer award for Choral Writing (Canada), among many other awards from across North America.

Matthew studied at the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto. He is a member of the Canadian Music Centre, Canadian League of Composers and is composer-in- residence with the Amabile Choirs of London Canada, ORIANA Women's Choir in Toronto and That Choir.

Eriks Esenvalds

Eriks Esenvalds is one of the most sought-after composers working today, with a busy commission schedule and performances of his music heard on every continent. Born in Priekule, Latvia in 1977, he studied at the Latvian Baptist Theological Seminary (1995-97) before obtaining his Master's degree in composition (2004) from the Latvian Academy of Music under the tutelage of Selga Mence. He took master-classes with Michael Finnissy, Klaus Huber, Philippe Manoury, and Jonathan Harvey, amongst others. From 2002-11 he was a member of the State Choir Latvija. In 2011 he was awarded the two-year position of Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. He is married with four children and gives students his expertise as composition teacher at the Latvian Academy of Music.

Laura Farnell

Laura Farnell is an choral composer, clinician, accompanist, and adjudicator who resides in Arlington, Texas. After graduating summa cum laude from Baylor University with her Bachelor of Music Education in Choral Music (with a piano emphasis) in 1998, Laura taught elementary music in Mansfield, Texas for two years. She then taught for eight years at Boles Junior High in Arlington ISD, during which time the choir program earned numerous UIL sweepstakes awards. In 2004 she received an Excellence in Education Award as the Arlington Independent School District's outstanding junior high teacher of the year.

Frank Ferko

The music of Frank Ferko has been heard in live performances and radio broadcasts around the world. Hailed by critics as a master of text setting and composing for a cappella vocal ensembles, Mr. Ferko is one of the most sought after composers of new choral music today, and his works have been performed by some of the most highly regarded choral ensembles and vocal soloists of our time.

From 2001 to 2003 Frank Ferko held the position of Composer-in-Residence with the Dale Warland Singers, long regarded as one of America's finest a cappella choirs, and his awards include an ASCAP award nearly every year from 1989 to 2019, as well as awards from Meet the Composer, American Composers Forum, American Music Center, Arts International and the American Guild of Organists. Four times he received the Individual Artist's Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council, and in 2003, 2005 and 2006 the Illinois Arts Council awarded him the Governor's International Travel Exchange Grant for presentations of his music in The Netherlands and Ireland.

Frode Fjellheim

Frode Fjellheim lives in Trondheim, Norway and is a Norwegian musician (piano and synthesizer), composer and yoiker (performer of the traditional Sami vocal tradition). He is best known for his band Transjoik and for being the composer of the opening theme of the Disney movie "Frozen". Fjellheim was educated as a classical piano teacher, but has developed his own style as a performer and composer, combining elements from the traditional Sami tradition with elements from classical music, jazz, pop and rock. He has released several albums both as a solo artist, with his band Transjoik, and through various collaborations. Fjellheim also heads his own music company called Vuelie. He holds a professorate in music at Nord University.

Jill Gallina

Dr. Michael and Jill Gallina have achieved national prominence as award winning composers of musical plays and choral music for youth in elementary, middle, junior and senior high schools. Their clever creations in story and song have consistently won awards from the Parents Choice Foundation , American Library Service and ASCAP. Their music has been featured and performed on the Disney Channel, The World's largest Concert, PBS, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Sing for the Cure, The New York Philharmonic, The Boston Pops, and in a documentary on children's rights for the United Nations. In addition, the Gallinas are recipients of the Stanley Austin Alumni Award from the College of New Jersey for their many accomplishments in the field of composition.

Ola Gjeilo

Ola Gjeilo is one of the most frequently performed composers in the choral world. An accomplished pianist, improvisations over his own published choral pieces have become a trademark of his collaborations across the world. Although Norwegian by birth, it is perhaps Ola's adopted country of America that has influenced the composer's distinctive soundworld the most, evolving a style that is both contemporary and familiar; thick harmonies and rich textures recall film score - music that forms a major part of the composer's inspiration.

Ola grew up in a musically eclectic home listening to classical, jazz, pop and folk, a broad background he later incorporated into his classical composition studies at The Juilliard School, and the Royal College of Music, London, and currently as a New York City-based full-time composer.

Philip Glass

Through his operas, his symphonies, his compositions for his own ensemble, and his wide-ranging collaborations with artists ranging from Twyla Tharp to Allen Ginsberg, Woody Allen to David Bowie, Philip Glass has had an extraordinary and unprecedented impact upon the musical and intellectual life of his times.

The operas - "Einstein on the Beach," "Satyagraha," "Akhnaten," and "The Voyage," among many others - play throughout the world's leading houses, and rarely to an empty seat. Glass has written music for experimental theater and for Academy Award-winning motion pictures such as "The Hours" and Martin Scorsese's "Kundun," while "Koyaanisqatsi," his initial filmic landscape with Godfrey Reggio and the Philip Glass Ensemble, may be the most radical and influential mating of sound and vision since "Fantasia." His associations, personal and professional, with leading rock, pop and world music artists date back to the 1960s, including the beginning of his collaborative relationship with artist Robert Wilson. Indeed, Glass is the first composer to win a wide, multi-generational audience in the opera house, the concert hall, the dance world, in film and in popular music -- simultaneously.

Howard Goodall

Howard Goodall is an EMMY, BRIT, Gramophone and BAFTA -winning composer of choral music, stage musicals, film and TV scores, is well known as a TV and Radio broadcaster and is a leading spokesperson for music education in the UK. His best-known themes & scores include Into the Storm, The Gathering Storm, The Borrowers, Red Dwarf, The Catherine Tate Show, Q.I., Mr Bean, Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie, Mr Bean's Holiday, Blackadder, and The Vicar of Dibley.

In the theatre his many musicals, from The Hired Man with Melvyn Bragg to Love Story, have been performed throughout the English-speaking world from the West End to Off-Broadway, winning many international awards, including Ivor Novello and TMA Awards for Best Musical.

Adolphus Hailstork

Adolphus Hailstork received his doctorate in composition from Michigan State University, where he was a student of H. Owen Reed. He completed earlier studies at the Manhattan School of Music, under Vittorio Giannini and David Diamond, the American Institute at Fontainebleau with Nadia Boulanger, and Howard University with Mark Fax.

Dr. Hailstork has written in a variety of genres, producing works for chorus, solo voice, piano, organ, various chamber ensembles, band, and orchestra. His early compositions include Celebration, recorded by the Detroit Symphony in 1976; and two works for band (Out of the Depths, 1977, and American Guernica, 1983), both of which won national competitions. Consort Piece (1995), commissioned by the Norfolk Chamber Ensemble, was awarded first prize by the University of Delaware Festival of Contemporary Music.

Patrick Hawes

In recent years, Patrick Hawes has emerged as one of the country's most popular and inspirational composers. Born in Lincolnshire, he read music as an organ scholar at Durham University, and soon went on to make an impact in the world of choral music with his cantata The Wedding at Cana. It was with the release of his debut album Blue in Blue, however, that Patrick first gained widespread public recognition. Made CD of the Week on Classic FM in 2004, it was nominated for a Classical Brit award and was voted by Classic FM listeners as the fastest ever and highest new entry into the station's Hall of Fame. The standout track Quanta Qualia became a hit with audiences across the world and the New Zealand star Hayley Westenra recorded it for her own award-winning album Odyssey.

During the course of 2014, Patrick was commissioned to write three new works to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War: the first was Eventide: In Memoriam Edith Cavell inspired by the heroism of the WWI nurse; the second depicted the legend of The Angel of Mons appearing to soldiers in the first battle of the war; the third was a work inspired by the unfinished Wilfred Owen poem I Know the Music.

Gabriel Jackson

Gabriel Jackson was born in Bermuda in 1962. After three years as a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral, Jackson studied composition at the Royal College of Music, first with Richard Blackford and later with John Lambert, gaining his BMus in 1983. While at the College he was awarded the R.O. Morris Prize for Composition in 1981 and 1983, also winning the Theodore Holland Award in 1981. In 1992 he was awarded an Arts Council Bursary.

His music has been performed and broadcast throughout Europe and the USA, and in recent years has been heard in Cape Town, Ho Chi Minh City, Kiev, Kuwait, Sydney, Tokyo and Vancouver. His works have been presented at many festivals in the UK and beyond, including Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, ThreeTwo (New York), Lek Art 2000 & 2004 (Culemborg), ppIANISSIMO (Sofia), Haarlem Choir Biennale, Europa Cantat, Festival Vancouver, Festival ProBaltica, as well as Spitalfields and Meltdown in London. His liturgical pieces are in the repertoires of many of Britain's leading cathedral and collegiate choirs. In 2003 he won the liturgical category at the inaugural British Composer Awards.

Sir Karl Jenkins

Sir Karl William Pamp Jenkins, CBE is a Welsh musician and composer known for "Adiemus", The Armed Man and his Requiem. Jenkins holds a Doctorate in Music from the University of Wales. He has been made both a fellow and an associate of the Royal Academy of Music, and a room has been named in his honour. He also has had fellowships at Cardiff University (2005), the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Trinity College Carmarthen, and Swansea Metropolitan University.

Dale Jergenson

Dale Jergenson, was recognized world wide as a composer and performer with extensive credits in classical, film and commercial music. He held a B.A. and M.A. from San Diego State University, where he was honored as "Music Alumnus of the year 2000," a California Community College Instructor Credential, had five years post-graduate study in composition at UCLA, is listed in "Who's Who in American Music," and is cited in "Choral Music in the Twentieth Century" by Nick Strimple. He is the winner of film awards from festivals including the U.S. Film Festival, The Cine Golden Eagle and the Tehran International Film Festival. He has received music composition awards from the AGEHR National Composition Contest, the Lincoln Music Festival, the Richmond Professional Institute, the Celia Buck Awards, Saint Andrew Music Society, Atwater Kent Awards and the 1994 Delius Vocal Category Award.

Libby Larsen

Libby Larsen is one of America's most prolific and most performed living composers. She has created a catalogue of over 400 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral works and over twelve operas. Her music has been praised for its dynamic, deeply inspired, and vigorous contemporary American spirit. Constantly sought after for commissions and premieres by major artists, ensembles and orchestras around the world, Libby Larsen has established a permanent place for her works in the concert repertory.

Libby Larsen has received numerous awards and accolades, including a 1994 Grammy as producer of the CD: The Art of Arlene Auger, an acclaimed recording that features Larsen's Sonnets from the Portuguese.

Thomas LaVoy

Thomas LaVoy is an award-winning composer who specializes in composing for the human voice. His work is known for striking a balance between emotional depth and compositional craft, grounded in a firm belief in the power of words and music in tandem. His music is strongly influenced by his broad performance career as a choral artist, pianist, percussionist and singer-songwriter. He received his undergraduate degree from Westminster Choir College and his PhD from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, where he was a choral scholar in the Chapel Choir of King's College, Aberdeen. .

Thomas' choral works have been commissioned and performed by choirs across the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as in Europe, Asia, and Oceania. Recent projects have included water psalms, a multi-movement work commissioned by Edinburgh Royal Choral Union for the 400th anniversary of the founding of Greyfriar's Kirk, I Am: The Song of Amergin, commissioned for the National Youth Choirs of Northern Ireland, Your name falls like rain, commissioned for Dallas Chamber Choir, and many others. He has also served as composer-in-residence for numerous choral and instrumental ensembles and has twice been an invited guest composer of the Choral Institute at Oxford.

Stephen Leek

Stephen Leek is a composer, conductor, educator and publisher who has been at the forefront of Australia's musical culture for over 20 years. His distinctive music captures the rhythms, colours and ethos of Australia and Australians. He is a versatile composer much respected for work that is suited to all ages and levels of skill. His prolific output is in a straight-forward musical language which speaks directly to its audience, yet maintains an integrity that has seen it performed by leading musicians in the great concert halls of the world.

Leek studied at the Canberra School of Music with composer Larry Sitsky and cellist Nelson Cooke. Stephen commenced his professional life doing part-copying work for other composers. He was offered the full-time position of Composer/Musician to the Tasmanian Dance Company - a position he held for 3 years. During that time he honed his skills by working in schools and in communities, composing and collaborating with choreographers and musicians in what was then Australia's only 'Dance in Education Company'.

Mary Lynn Lightfoot

Mary Lynn Lightfoot is the Choral Editor for Heritage Music Press, the educational music division of The Lorenz Corporation in Dayton, Ohio.

In addition to her editorial responsibilities, Mary Lynn has effectively established herself with an active composing career and currently has over 230 published choral compositions, arrangements, and musicals.

She has received an annual ASCAP Award for her compositions from the ASCAP Standard Awards Panel since 1988, and was selected an Outstanding Young Woman of America in 1984. Mary Lynn has received two prestigious awards from the Missouri Choral Directors Association (MCDA): in 1994, she was the recipient of the Luther T. Spayde Award for Missouri Choral Conductor of the Year, and in 2005, the recipient of the Opus Award for her SSA composition, The Rhodora. In conjunction with her writing, Mary Lynn is in frequent demand as a guest conductor/clinician for both schools and churches, having had the privilege of working with thousands of singers, students, teachers, and directors through workshops, clinics, and conventions in 36 states and throughout Canada.

Mosie Lister

In 1939, Mosie Lister studied music at the Vaughan School Of Music in Tennessee. He began his musical career as a singer, performing as an original member of the Sunny South Quartet before World War II. After a four year stint with the Navy, he worked a few months again with the Sunny South Quartet before leaving to form the Melody Masters with Jim Wetherington, Alvin Tootle, Lee Kitchens, and Wally Varner in 1946. Lister remained in Atlanta when the Melody Masters moved to Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1948, Lister was tapped by Hovie Lister to be the original baritone for the Statesmen. (Despite their common last name, similar first names and involvement with the Statesmen, Mosie is no relation to Hovie).

Zhou Long

Born into an artistic family, Zhou Long began studying piano from an early age. Due to the artistic restrictions implemented during the Cultural Revolution, he was forced to delay his piano studies and live on a rural state-run farm where he operated a tractor in the fields. The deserted landscapes with horrible winds and fires experienced during the Cultural Revolution made a deep impression and influence his compositions even today. Nearing the end of the Cultural Revolution, he was able to resume his musical studies in the areas of composition, music theory, conducting and also traditional Chinese music. Only one year after the end of the Cultural Revolution, Zhou Long was one of one hundred students chosen from eighteen thousand applicants to study at the newly reopened Beijing Central Conservatory in 1977.

Sir James MacMillan

Sir James MacMillan is one of today's most successful composers and is also internationally active as a conductor. His musical language is flooded with influences from his Scottish heritage, Catholic faith, social conscience and close connection with Celtic folk music, blended with influences from Far Eastern, Scandinavian and Eastern European music.

MacMillan enjoys a flourishing career as conductor of his own music alongside a range of contemporary and standard repertoire, praised for the composer's insight he brings to each score. In October 2014 MacMillan founded his music festival, The Cumnock Tryst, which takes place annually in his native Ayrshire. MacMillan was awarded a CBE in 2004 and a Knighthood in 2015.

Lin Marsh

Lin Marsh is a highly sought-after composer, specializing in vocal works for young people. She is also one of the UK's most well-respected singing leaders, travelling the country inspiring students and teachers with her dynamic workshops. Lin trained at Trinity College of Music and London University, later gaining an MA in Performance Arts at Middlesex University. She has worked extensively in music education in all sectors and with organisations such as the London Mozart Players, Birmingham Symphony Hall Education, The Royal Opera House Education department, Glyndebourne Education, Opera North and Youth Music Theatre UK. As a voice specialist, Lin works throughout the country running courses for teachers on singing, performance and composing skills, and directs many choral festivals for all key stages, as well as presenting and adjudicating festivals.

Joseph Martin

Joseph Martin, a native of North Carolina, earned his Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Subsequently he earned a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance at the University of Texas, Austin. Joseph taught for five years in the Piano Pedagogy Department of the University of Texas. His piano teachers include Jimmy Woodle, David Gibson, Amanda Vick Lethco, Martha Hilley and Danielle Martin. While at Furman University, he was accompanist for choral director and composer Milburn Price and, inspired by his teaching, Martin began to compose.

His music can be heard in such diverse locations as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York City; Constitution Hall in Washington DC, The Lawrence Welk Theatre in Branson, Missouri; St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City; and in hundreds of worship services in churches across the United States and Canada. He continues to surprise audiences with the variety and scope of his compositions and arrangements.

Steve Martland

Steve Martland was born on 10 October 1959 in Liverpool and studied composition in Holland with Louis Andriessen. His preoccupation with the function of the composer in society is reflected in his commitment to music education. He has directed many composition projects in schools both at home and abroad and he ran Strike Out, his own annual composition course for school children.

Most recently Martland wrote the test piece for the TROMP International Music Festival and Competition: Starry Night for percussion and string quartet. His widely performed choral music includes Street Songs, originally for the King's Singers and Evelyn Glennie and later presented by the Monteverdi Choir and Colin Currie under John Eliot Gardiner with a film by the Quay brothers; and Tyger Tyger, for Youth Music's nationwide Sing Up campaign. Future plans include more choral music, in collaboration with Paul Hillier.

James McCullough

James McCullough worked for twenty years at Boston State College (now the University of Massachusetts Boston campus) as Head of the Curriculum Materials Research and Resource Center to support himself as a composer. As their Literature and Curriculum Materials Specialist, he also taught the undergraduate and graduate courses in Children's and Young Adult Literature.

Later, returning full-time to music, he held a professional position at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Then, for five years he also served as the Arts Administrator of the Music, Literature, and Folk Life programs at the Massachusetts Council for the Arts, Humanities, and Sciences (now the Massachusetts Cultural Council).

During that time he continued to perform locally as a tenor soloist, and to compose music for many national and local Boston music organizations. A student of Daniel Pinkham and Undine Smith Moore, his complete music titles to date with their publishers are listed in The Boston Composers Project, which is published by the MIT Press.

Cecilia McDowall

Born in London,1951, Cecilia McDowall has won many awards and been eight times short-listed for the British Composer Awards. In 2014 she won the British Composer Award for Choral Music. Much of McDowall's choral music is performed worldwide, as well as her orchestral music. Recent important commissions include one for the BBC Singers, Westminster Cathedral Choir, London Mozart Players and a joint commission from the City of London Sinfonia. Three Latin Motets were recorded by the renowned American choir, Phoenix Chorale; this Chandos recording, Spotless Rose, won a Grammy award and was nominated for Best Classical Album. New commissions for 2016 include works for the BBC Singers, Choir of King's, Cambridge and a new song cycle for Roderick Williams, amongst others. In 2013 she received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of Portsmouth.

Paul Mealor

Described in the New York Times as, 'one of the most important composers to have emerged in Welsh choral music since William Mathias... A real and original talent', Paul Mealor's music has rapidly entered the repertoire of choirs and singers around the world. His music has been described as having, 'serene beauty, fastidious craftsmanship and architectural assuredness... Music of deep spiritual searching that always asks questions, offers answers and fills the listener with hope...' His sacred motets, songs and cycles have been performed, broadcast and recorded by artists in the UK, USA and much further afield.

Mealor was catapulted to international attention when 2.5 billion people (the largest audience in broadcasting history) heard his Motet, Ubi caritas performed by the choirs of Westminster Abbey and Her Majesty's Chapel Royal, conducted by James O'Donnell at the Royal Wedding Ceremony of His Royal Highness Prince William and Catherine Middleton (now TRH The Duke & Duchess of Cambridge) at Westminster Abbey, 29th April 2011.

Kirke Mechem

Kirke Mechem is a prolific composer with a catalogue of over 250 works. He enjoys an international presence, as ASCAP recently registered concert performances of his music in 42 countries. Born and raised in Kansas and educated at Stanford and Harvard Universities, Mechem conducted and taught at Stanford, and served as composer-in-residence for several years at the University of San Francisco. Mechem also lived in Europe, spending three years in Vienna where he came to the attention of Josef Krips, who later championed the composer's symphonies as conductor of the San Francisco Symphony. He has been honored and recognized for his contributions from such organizations as the United Nations, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Gallery, the American Choral Directors Association, and the Music Educators National Conference. He was presented with a lifetime achievement award from the National Opera Association.

Kevin Memley

Kevin A. Memley is a choral composer and pianist with over 70 published works to his credit. His music has been performed around the world. He has conducted his works in Carnegie Hall, has been featured prominently in ACDA conventions, and is commissioned frequently for new works. Kevin's music is published through Pavane, G. Schirmer, GIA/Walton, Gentry, John Rich Music Press and Epiphany House. He has also composed, orchestrated and conducted for three feature films.

Cristi Cary Miller

Cristi Miller is highly regarded across the United States as a master teacher, conductor and composer. After graduating from Oklahoma State University, she began her teaching career instructing grades 7-12. She eventually moved to the Putnam City School system in 1989 where she worked in the elementary classroom for 21 years. During her time at Putnam City, she was the co-director of the Putnam City Honor Choir. This chorus was highly regarded in their area, winning many honors at festivals and competitions.

Cristi has served as the Elementary Representative on the Oklahoma Choral Directors Association Board of Directors as well as the Elementary Vice President and President for the Oklahoma Music Educators Association. Along with her educational responsibilities, Mrs. Miller authors and co-authors a column for a national music magazine entitled Music Express! and was a contributing writer for the Macmillan McGraw-Hill music textbook series, Spotlight on Music.

Meredith Monk

Meredith Monk is a composer, singer, director/choreographer and creator of new opera, music theater works, films and installations. A pioneer in what is now called "extended vocal technique" and "interdisciplinary performance," Monk creates works that thrive at the intersection of music and movement, image and object, light and sound in an effort to discover and weave together new modes of perception. Her groundbreaking exploration of the voice as an instrument, as an eloquent language in and of itself, expands the boundaries of musical composition, creating landscapes of sound that unearth feelings, energies, and memories for which we have no words. She has alternately been proclaimed as a "magician of the voice" and "one of America's coolest composers." During a career that spans more than 45 years she has been acclaimed by audiences and critics as a major creative force in the performing arts.

Donald Moore

Donald P. Moore holds a Bachelor of Music degree in organ performance and a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from Kent State University, Kent, Ohio. Mr. Moore is Organist-Choirmaster at Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. He is a prolific composer, arranger, lyricist and author with over 500 compositions in print with Alfred Publishing, BriLee Music, Warner Brothers Publications, Hal Leonard, Heritage Music Press and Coronet Press including sacred, secular educational and pop choral works, music collections, organ and piano works and eight educational books.

Nico Muhly

Nico Muhly is an American composer and sought-after collaborator whose influences range from American minimalism to the Anglican choral tradition. The recipient of commissions from The Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Philadelphia Orchestra and others, he has written more than 80 works for the concert stage, including the operas Two Boys (2010), Dark Sisters (2011), and Marnie; the song cycles Sentences (2015), for countertenor Iestyn Davies, and Impossible Things (2009), for tenor Mark Padmore; a viola concerto for violist Nadia Sirota; the choral works My Days (2011) and Recordare, Domine (2013), written for the Hilliard Ensemble and the Tallis Scholars respectively and most recently Looking Up (2017), a work for choir and orchestra for the Cathedral Choral Society.

Tarik O'Regan

Tarik O'Regan 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 in the title role. 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.

Nick Page

Nick Page is a Boston based composer, conductor and author who is best known for his song leading. In the 1980's he was a conductor with the Emmy Award winning Chicago Children's Choir. Since 1990, he has led Boston's Mystic Chorale and guest conducted around the word including at three of the four Carnegie Halls (Pittsburgh, New York, and Scotland). His choral works have premiered everywhere from Lincoln Center to humble school cafitoriums. He is the author of three books and has close to one hundred published choral pieces.