Composer selection for 2011 ‘New Music Arizona’ Concert announced

April 20, 2011 - PRLog -- Chaparral Arts announces the four Arizona composers whose works have been selected to be featured on the fifth annual Chaparral MusicFest ‘New Music Arizona’ Concert to be held on June 12, 2011 in Prescott, AZ:
Sy Brandon
Douglas Gibson
Craig Bohmler
Judith Cloud

The concert will be held Sunday June 12, 2011 at 3:00 PM at Trinity Presbyterian Church, 630 Park Avenue, Prescott. Advance tickets are available at www.chaparralmusicfest.org at $5 for students, $17 for adults and $120 for ten tickets.

Sy Brandon, of Cottonwood, AZ, is professor emeritus of music from Millersville University, Millersville, PA where he taught low brass, composition, orchestration, music history, electronic music, and music industry for twenty four years. He received his B.S. and M.S. in music education from Ithaca College and his Associate Music Degree in composition from the University of Arizona. His composition teachers have been Warren Benson, Elie Siegmeister, and Robert McBride.

Dr. Brandon’s music is published by Theodore Presser Co., T.U.B.A. Manuscript Press, Trombone Association Publishing, and Co-Op Press. His book, “A Composer’s Guide to Understanding Music with Activities for Listeners, Interpreters, and Composers” is published by Co-op Press. He has been a recipient of an ASCAP Special Award annually since 1998.  

Dr. Brandon was recently awarded a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts to create a band composition in celebration of the Arizona Centennial, which will be celebrated from September 2011 to September 2012. Dr. Brandon's Arizona Centennial Overture for concert-band will be available for performance by a wide range of musicians, including high school, college, university, community, faith-based and professional and semi-professional ensembles.

Douglas Gibson has an eclectic and award-winning body of work ranging from film soundtracks, compositions for classical music ensembles, dance, theater, digital art installations and corporate projects.  A former guitar student of Frank Koonce at Arizona State University, Mr. Gibson is a native of Phoenix.

Mr. Gibson’s works have been performed in film festivals in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Sydney and Melbourne, at the National Gallery of Victoria and the Australian Centre of the Moving Image. His music has been broadcast on ABC Radio, 3MBS and RRR radio stations.  He received awards from ASCAP in 2007, 2008 and 2009 for outstanding contributions to concert music.

In July of 2009 Mr. Gibson moved to New York City to pursue his career as a film, television, and concert composer. He recently completed a new 10 minute work for Orchestra Victoria, titled Mesmerized,  commissioned by Symphony Australia’s ‘Emerging Composers’ program. His composition for solo harp The Pearl Divers  debuted at Carnegie Hall in October of 2010 at the USA International Harp Competition.

Craig Bohmler, a resident of Scottsdale, is a composer and pianist whose works have been widely performed in the United States, Canada and Europe. Primarily a composer for the singing theater and voice, Mr. Bohmler has written three operas and nine musicals as well as one hundred fifty art songs and numerous choral works.

Mr. Bohmler’s opera The Achilles Heel (written with Mary Carol Warwick), commissioned and premiered by Houston Grand Opera, was first prize winner in the National Opera Association Competition. His other commissions include works for the San Jose Chamber Orchestra,  Mission Chamber Orchestra, and Phoenix Theater.

Mr. Bohmler was musical director for the Banff Center for the Arts in Canada for three years, and held the same position at Phoenix Theater, Musical Theater of Arizona, Arizona Theatre Company, American Musical Theatre of San Jose, New Jersey Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, San Jose Repertory Company, Willows Theatre, Laguna Playhouse, and The Three Redneck Tenors (National Tour).

Judith Cloud is an accomplished composer and performer. She has numerous compositions to her credit, most notably a cantata, Feet of Jesus, which is featured on a CD entitled “Spirituals” on the BIS Northern Lights label.  She is the recipient of two Sorel Medallions for her choral compositions, receiving first prize for Anacreontics for chorus and guitar, performed in Zankel Hall (Carnegie) in 2009. Dr. Cloud resides in Flagstaff where she is Professor of Music at Northern Arizona University.

Dr. Cloud was the mezzo-soprano soloist for the American premier performance of Michael Tippett's A Child of Our Time with the Winston-Salem Symphony.  As a specialist in twentieth-century vocal music she has been responsible for several commissions of new vocal works.

Her career highlights include singing on the esteemed radio program “Saint Paul Sunday Morning.” She has performed symphonic works such as Ravel's Shéhérezade, Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, Verdi’s Requiem, Bernstein’s Jeremiah Symphony, Mahler Symphony No. 2 and  Symphony No. 4, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Bach’s St. John Passion, St. Matthew Passion, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah.

Recent performances include a recital as artist faculty with the Big Bear Lake Song Festival in San Bernadino County, CA.  In July of 2010 she sang one of her own compositions at the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) National Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah.

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Chaparral MusicFest is produced by Chaparral Arts, an Arizona 5013C corporation. CMF produces workshops and academies for youth and adults and the New Music Arizona Concert. Many events are free. The festival, annually in June, is in Prescott, AZ.