ABOUT THE ARTISTS
STEPHEN FUTRELL, CONDUCTOR
Stephen A. Futrell (DMA, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Conservatory of Music) is Director of Choral Activities and Associate Professor of Music at Elon University in North Carolina, where he teaches conducting, directs the auditioned Elon Camerata, teaches contemporary commercial studio vocal style and technique, directs élan, a select a cappella, vocal jazz, commercial/studio ensemble, and is conductor for the Elon Orchestra. He currently serves as Artistic Director/Conductor for Voices – The Chapel Hill Chorus, conducting two ensembles: Voices, a 130-member chorus; and Cantari, a chamber choir of 30-36 members. The Mission of Voices is to foster, sustain, and share the art and joy of choral music and to enrich the Triangle community through excellent performances of music from diverse cultures and historical periods.
Dr. Futrell’s experience, enthusiasm, and guidance was instrumental in founding and developing Elon’s Bachelor of Science degree in Music Production & Recording Arts—a very popular program that now boasts its own record label, tech lab, and digital recording studios. It was his background and curricular research that facilitated the establishment of the program’s emphasis on creative process, critical listening, and both live and studio performance and recording techniques.
With the Baton Rouge Symphony, as former Chorus Master and Staff Conductor, Dr. Futrell conducted annual Messiah concerts, Christmas Pops concerts, as well as their summer concert series. He made his European conducting debut in June 2002, appearing with the Sinfonia Dell’Arte di Arezzo at the Teatro Petraca, Arezzo, Italy. Then in 2006, he served as conductor for the National Youth Choir at Carnegie Hall, as a guest conductor at New York’s Lincoln Center, as well as appearing as Associate Conductor/Chorus Master for the Aegean Verdi Festival on the island of Lesvos, Greece. Among Futrell’s publications, his most significant are his modern performance editions of three Classical motets by Anna Amalia von Sachsen (1739-1807), published and available through Fred Bock Music Publishers.
ANDREW MINEAR, CONDUCTOR
With appearances across the United States, Dr. Andrew Minear is an active conductor, music educator, and choir leader. Dr. Minear is the founding Artistic and Executive Director of Orlando Sings (orlandosings.org) where he conducts the Orlando Sings Symphonic Chorus and the professional vocal ensemble Solaria. He also serves as Director of Music Ministry at All Saints Episcopal Church of Winter Park. Recent or upcoming engagements include Opera Orlando’s production of All is Calm, the National Concert Chorus at Carnegie Hall, the National Youth Chorus at Carnegie Hall, the Seoul Oratorio Festival in South Korea, the American Choral Directors Association Southern Region SSAA Honor Choir, Music and Worship Arts weeks in Lake Junaluska and Montreat, and ten all-state choirs. He has conducted multiple summers at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan and led the Florida Ambassadors of Music on performance tours of Europe. Before it was cancelled due to the pandemic, Minear was one of only 40 choral leaders in the world selected to present at the 12th World Symposium on Choral Music in Auckland, New Zealand. Dr. Minear’s passion for expressive music-making has been cultivated through over two decades of experience in children’s, church, community, middle school, high school, collegiate, and professional choral settings.
Previously, Dr. Minear was the Director of Choral Activities at the University of Alabama where he conducted University Singers and University Chorus, oversaw the graduate choral conducting program, and taught courses in conducting and choral literature. The UA University Singers performed at the 2018 Alabama Music Educators Association conference, and performances of choral-orchestral works included Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Bach’s Missa Brevis in A, Mozart’s Requiem, and the southeastern premier of Jocelyn Hagen’s multi-media symphony, The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci.
VINCENT (VIC) OAKES, CONDUCTOR
Since 2006, Mr. Oakes has served as Director of Choral Music and Music Instructor at The Baylor School, a grade 6-12 independent day and boarding school in Chattanooga. Under his direction, the choral program has grown to include over 200 participants in four student choirs and a faculty choir. In 2015, he was awarded Baylor's Glenn Ireland Chair for Distinguished Teaching and starts his service as Chair of Baylor’s Fine Arts Department beginning with the 2019-2020 school year.
Mr. Oakes also serves as Artistic Director of the Chattanooga Boys Choir, a music education and performance organization founded in 1954 which now includes over 120 choristers ages 8-18 in five ensembles. Including innovative performance opportunities and collaborative community initiatives, the CBC maintains a performance calendar of thirty appearances annually, as well as a technology-based music education curriculum for its participants. The choir has performed and toured extensively under Mr. Oakes' direction, including performance tours to Europe, Canada, and Cuba, as well as significant domestic appearances at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, St. Louis Cathedral (New Orleans), and Carnegie Hall. Recording opportunities for the CBC have included commercially-released recordings with Stephen Curtis Chapman, Casting Crowns, and the grammy-nominated NAXOS recording of Maurice Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.
His professional involvement and leadership in the American Choral Directors Association has included service to the Tennessee chapter as newsletter editor, webmaster, state conference chair, and President (2013-2015). He has been an active contributor to ACDA’s Southern Region serving as Repertoire & Standards Chair for Boychoirs from 2006-2012, as an interest session presenter on the topics of the changing male voice, teaching choral literacy and musicianship in the choral rehearsal, and repertoire . In 2012, he was selected as one of seven conductors chosen to represent the United States at the inaugural ACDA International Conductor Exchange Program in Cuba and, in June 2019, he begins his service as President to ACDA’s eleven-state Southern Region.
SHERRY BLEVINS, COMPOSER-IN-RESIDENCE
Sherry Blevins is an award-winning music educator, conductor/clinician, and more recently, a lyricist and composer. She discovered her ability to compose when on a whim, she offered to compose her first piece for the 2015 Durham All-County Choir. That same piece, If You Heard My Voice for 2-part treble, piano, and cello, was published in 2018. Since then, she has enjoyed composing for a variety of singers and ensembles across North America. Past-President of the American Choral Directors Association and Artistic Director of the Chattanooga Boys Choir, Vincent Oakes writes, "Sherry Blevins’ music is as engaging and enriching for the singer as it is enjoyable for the listener. Her writing is smart, accessible, and well-balanced, advancing the aims of every text fortunate enough to receive her musical treatment. With beautifully crafted melodies, tuneful harmonies, and supportive accompaniments, her compositions should find a preferred place with more choirs in the near future."
In 2018, she was selected the winner of the international Claremont Chorale’s Composition Contest and is thrilled to announce that her winning composition, A Tapestry of Music (SATB) was published in the fall of 2019 in Tesfa Wondemagegnehu’s series. (The SSA version is already published with Hinshaw Music, Inc.) She was recently honored to conduct A Tapestry of Music (SSA) for the President’s Concert at the Southern Regional American Choral Director’s Association Conference in Mobile, Alabama in March of 2020.
In the summers of 2018 and 2019, as her composing career was just beginning, she was one of seven composers nationwide to be selected as a composing fellow at the CORO Composer’s Institute in Iowa, where she premiered (now a Hinshaw Music SATB release), Breath of Life. A newer release, I Dream of a World, was recently selected for Editor's Choice on J.W. Pepper & Son, Inc., and was selected as a featured piece for North Carolina’s Music in Our Schools Month as well as for the National Association for Music Education’s Music in Our Schools Month 2020. Additional information and links to Sherry's music can be found at www.sherryblevinsmusic.com.
PROGRAM
A Light Shines: Life in Harmony
NATIONAL YOUTH CHORUS
ANDREW MINEAR & VIC OAKES, CO-GUEST CONDUCTORS
Hheshe — arr. Mpumelelo Manyathi
Verleih Uns Frieden — Felix Mendelssohn
Hands Are Knockin' — Kyle Pederson
Music of Life — Brittney Boykin
Awaken — Sherry Blevins (WORLD PREMIERE)
TaReKiTa — Reena Esmail
This Little Light of Mine — arr. Robert T. Gibson
NATIONAL MASTERWORK CHORUS
STEPHEN FUTRELL, Guest Conductor
REQUIEM — Fauré
SPOTLIGHT PERFORMANCES BY:
Young Singers of the Palm Beaches
Shawn Berry & Connie Drosakis, Conductors
Voices of Hope
Sarah Grandpre, Conductor
Saturday June 8th, 2024 at 1:00pm
CARNEGIE HALL