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Bella
Voce performs a variety of existing and
newly-commissioned sacred and secular works for women's voices.
This May, we will perform a number of
selections from Vermont composer Gwyneth Walker, including Gifts
from the Sea,
based
on Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s inspirational book “Gift from the Sea”
which will become part of a new cantata, “Lessons from
the Sea,” commissioned by Bella Voce.
Other works will include Halleluyah
by Michael Isaacson, and Three Hebrew Songs edited by Robert DeCormier.
About the Composers
Gwyneth Walker
 Dr.
Gwyneth Walker (b. 1947) is a
graduate of Brown University and the Hartt School of Music. She holds
B.A., M.M. and D.M.A. Degrees in Music Composition. A former faculty
member of the Oberlin College Conservatory, she resigned from academic
employment in 1982 in order to pursue a career as a full-time composer.
She now lives on a dairy farm in Braintree, Vermont. Walker is the
recipient of the Year 2000 "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the
Vermont Arts
Council. Her
catalog
includes over 160 commissioned works for orchestra, band, chorus and
chamber ensembles. The music of Gwyneth Walker is published by
E.C. Schirmer
of Boston (choral/vocal music) and
MMB Music
of St. Louis (orchestral/instrumental music).
During the 2005-6 season, Gwyneth Walker traveled across the United States
working with a variety of musicians as they premiered and recorded her
works. Performers ranged from professional soloists to high school players
and singers. In addition to composing new works, Walker has created
orchestral accompaniments for a number of choral and vocal works in her
catalog. Thus, the “Songs for Women’s Voices,” “I Thank You God,”
“I Will Be Earth” and the song cycle, “No Ordinary Woman!”
Two performances of this repertoire were given at Carnegie Hall during the
2005-6 season. Commissions for the coming year include several choral
works with a local, New England flavor that will be part of Walker’s 60th
Celebration Year that will include national performances as well as
a two-day celebration at the Chandler Hall in Randolph, Vermont.
 Michael
Isaacson
With over five hundred publications of
secular and sacred music and 50 produced recordings and CDs,
Michael Isaacson Ph.D. (Eastman School of Music) successfully balances a
commercial and concert music career as a composer, conductor, recordings
producer, and music educator. At Eastman, Dr. Isaacson served as
assistant to Choral Director Robert DeCormier.
As an orchestrator,
composer, and conductor Isaacson assisted film composers Alex North,
Elmer Bernstein, Charles Fox, Walter Scharf and composed his own music
for the mini-series Rich Man Poor Man II, Little Women, Hawaii 5-0
and Bionic Woman, many movies of the week, and the daytime series
Loving and Days of Our Lives. He has arranged for the
Bob Hope Show as well as for John Williams and The Boston Pops.
His music has most recently been heard on The Nanny and HBO's
Curb Your Enthusiasm.
In 1985, he began to produce CDs with
members of The Israel Philharmonic in Tel Aviv. Out of this association
came the founding of Michael Isaacson & The Israel Pops.
Dr. Isaacson, Founding Director of the
Milken Archive of Jewish Music, has composed four sacred services,
several cantatas, High Holiday liturgical music, life cycle settings,
created, taught, and recorded an innovative ten lesson syllabus for
teaching Jewish music composition, composed and conducted all the
symphonic music forThe Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City
and produced CDs of his own music with Cantors Faith Steinsnyder Gurney,
Thom King, and The Israel Philharmonic. His children's millennial service
L'Maaseih V'reisheet-To Recreate The World made musical history
when it was co-commissioned by forty-three congregations across America &
Canada and simultaneously premiered.
Isaacson also has five musicals to his
credit and has authored a column on the craft of composition for the
Society of Composers and Lyricists' SCORE. He was recently honored by
Hebrew Union College and the Jewish Theological Seminary as one of the ten
most influential sacred music composers today.
 Robert
De Cormier
Robert De Cormier,
a graduate of the Julliard School of Music, has conducted musicians from
Broadway to opera, on tour throughout the USA and Canada. He founded the
Robert DeCormier Singers, spent 17 years as music director of the New York
Choral Society, has been the conductor and arranger for Harry Belafonte,
and the music director for the popular folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary for
over thirty years. For five years he was associate professor of conducting
and ensembles at the Eastman School of Music. In 1993 he helped initiate
the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Chorus. In 2000 he founded the professional
vocal ensemble Counterpoint. He has written innumerable works, ranging
from choral composition to Broadway and ballet scores. He also arranges
extensively, from African-American spirituals to American and
international folk songs. His recordings appear on the Arabesque, Cox
Turnabout, Book of the Month Club, Newport Classics, Centaur, and Musical
Heritage Society labels. Television credits include a choral series for
the BBC, specials for Thames TV and PBS with Jessye Norman and an
Emmy-award-winning special with Harry Belafonte. He has served on the New
York State Council on the Arts and been a member of the Choral Panel of
the National Endowment for the Arts. He has been honored by the Vermont
Arts Council with the 2002 Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. In
2006, Choral Arts New England singled him out for their prestigious
life-time achievement award.
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