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Young Voices 2009 Clinicians


Girls' Children's Choir

Mary Alice Stollak



Mary Alice Stollak is Director of Choral Activities for the Community Music School at Michigan State University, where she is the Founding Director of the MSU Children's Choir Program. In February 2006, she was a double Grammy Award winner ("Best Choral Performance" and "Best Classical Album") for preparing the MSU Children's Choir for the critically acclaimed Naxos recording of William Bolcom's monumental Songs of Innocence and of Experience. She is a recipient of the Maynard Klein Award for Lifetime Achievement and Dedication to the Choral Art, given by the American Choral Directors Association of Michigan. She also was awarded the YWCA Diana Award for her contributions to the arts in mid-Michigan. In 2006, she received the East Lansing Educational Foundation Theda Assiff Award for distinguished community service. Stollak has appeared as festival guest conductor and workshop presenter in twenty-two states as well as Argentina, Canada, Germany, Italy and Sweden. Her choirs have frequently appeared at National, Division and State American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) conventions.

Under Stollak's direction, the MSU Children's Choir performed at the 6th World Symposium on Choral Music in August of 2002 as the official U.S. representative. The Ellen Taffee Zwilich Symphony No. 4 "The Gardens" was premiered with MSU choirs, orchestra and the MSUCC and is recorded on the Koch label. Stollak also prepared choirs for conductors Leonard Slatkin, Neeme Jarvi and Gustav Meier, as well as sharing performances with Marvin Hamlisch, Marilyn Horne, and the Canadian Brass. In the spring of 2007, the MSU Children's Choir performed the Pulitzer Prize winning work On the Transmigration of Souls, with composer John Adams conducting the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.Santa Barbara Music Publishing Company publishes the Mary Alice Stollak Choral Series, a set of treble choral publications that presents works by several composers in a variety of musical styles.

Prior to coming to Michigan State University, she was Director of Choral Activities for the Haslett, Michigan Public Schools for ten years, and was Associate Professor of Music at the University of Michigan-Flint. Since 1986 she has been the director of the National High School Music Institute Choir at Northwestern University.

Mary Alice Stollak served as President of the ACDA Central Division, ACDA-Michigan and the Michigan School Vocal Music Association (MSVMA).


Boychoir

Randy Pagel

Randy Pagel, a native of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, has conducted at Carnegie Hall in New York City, Orchestra Hall in Chicago, several honor choirs throughout the country, and at national conventions for the American Choral Directors Association and Music Educators' National Conference. He has conducted concerts for former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, and is scheduled to appear at the White House and Washington's National Cathedral. He has released several recordings, a music video, received various state and national teaching awards, was named the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh "Outstanding Young Alumni", was inducted into the Hall of Fame for both Oshkosh North High School and Clark County School District, and had "Randy Pagel Day" proclaimed in Henderson, Nevada, and Oshkosh, Wisconsin. A frequent guest clinician, he is the author of the book The Choral Director's Guide to Sanity...and Success!


Junior High Girls Choir

Lori Hetzler

Dr. Lori Hetzel is the Associate Director of Choral Activities and professor of Choral Music Education at the University of Kentucky where she conducts the Women's Choir and the a cappella group "Paws and Listen." She also teaches graduate and undergraduate secondary methods courses and undergraduate conducting. In conjunction with the undergraduate choral methods courses, she has pioneered a unique partnership program with a local high school. As a result of this program the choral music eduation students at the University of Kentucky are receiving "hands on" experience and immediate feedback early in their curriculum. Among her many accomplishments, she was the recipient of the University of Kentucky award "Great Teacher of the Year" in 2000 and has published articles in College Music Symposium and Southeastern Music Education Journal. The UK Women's Choir has been invited to perform at both MENC and ACDA Southern Division Conventions, and in 2003 were featured at the ACDA National Convention in New York City.

A native of Wisconsin, Dr. Hetzel received her B.A. degree in Music Education, Summa cum laude, from the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay. She received her M.M. degree from the University of Missouri - Kansas City Conservatory, where she studied conducting with Eph Ehly. Her D.M.A. degree is in Choral Conducting from Michigan State University with Charles K. Smith. An active clinician and guest conductor, Dr. Hetzel has most recently appeared at music conferences in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Montana, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia.


Junior High Mixed Choir

David Brunner

David L. Brunner is one of today’s most active and versatile composers and conductors. He is Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at the University of Central Florida in Orlando and is well known for his compelling work with singers of all ages, conducting All-State and regional honor choirs throughout the United States at the elementary, middle and high school levels.

As an inspired teacher, he is also a popular clinician at choral festivals and educational workshops throughout North America and Europe, including the American Choral Directors Association, Music Educators National Conference and American Guild of Organists, the Association of British Choral Directors and the Kodaly Societies of Canada and Australia, the International Cathedral Music Festival at Salisbury and Canterbury, the International Honor Band and Choir Festival at the Hague and Brussels, and the Choral Music Experience International Institute for Choral Teacher Education in England, Scotland and Wales.

Brunner is an imaginative composer who has received numerous ASCAP awards and in 2000 joined a prestigious group of American composers when he was named Raymond W. Brock Commissioned Composer by the American Choral Directors Association. The New York Times has noted him as a “prolific choral writer whose name figures prominently on national repertory lists”, his work having been performed and recorded worldwide in venues such as Royal Festival and Queen Elizabeth Halls in London, Canterbury Cathedral, Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, EPCOT and Carnegie Hall.

This year he conducts choirs from Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines and China at the Asian Pacific Activities Conference Choral Festival in Kobe, Japan, All-State High School Women’s Choirs in Virginia and Nebraska, the Alabama ACDA Young Singers Festival Junior High Mixed Choir at Auburn University, and the Norman All-City Chorus in Norman, Oklahoma. In May he returns to Carnegie Hall for a sixth time, conducting a concert of his works for chorus and orchestra. He also appears as conductor for the Portland Symphonic Girlchoir workshop, the High School Choral Leadership Workshop at Emporia State University in Kansas, and headliner clinician and conductor at the Voices United tri-state conference at George Mason University in Virginia. New works premiere in Florida, Indiana, South Carolina, Michigan, Scotland and the Netherlands.

Dr. Brunner has served on the editorial board for The Choral Journal and is the author of articles in both The Choral Journal and Music Educators Journal. He is published by Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.